Ed's Review Dot Com

Shavik Entertainment, Insight Film Studios

Gabrielle Carteris, Steve Bacic, Jocelyn Loewen, Ken Poque, Maureen Thomas, Steven Culp, Josh Hayden, Jonathan Hill

Holly Hall (Carteris) is the daughter of a toy company owner.  Dad is a bit of a child at heart, and Holly keeps it together.  She loves accounting and keeping the books and keeping everyone under budget.  Holly has a little boy, Ben (Josh Hayden)  but her husband was killed in an auto accident and she’s never gotten over it.  Nickolas St. Clair (Steve Bacic) moves in next door and is a very annoying neighbor.  With elves and reindeer around, he works day and night on projects in his workshop.  Holly’s Dad is his primary customer.  Holly’s son thinks Nickolas is Santa Claus and they really hit it off, but Holly has such a cold heart.   Things warm up between Holly and Nick, but she fights him off.

There is another Deck the Halls starting Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito.  This isn’t it.  This is the TV movie.  It’s a refreshing romantic Christmas story.  It’s certainly an unusual Santa we’ve got here, but why not?   Definitely not your standard Christmas story, but it’s an interesting concept.   This has a lot of the typical single mom/disenchanted son stuff, but the relationship between them is very good.  And when he’s definitely looking for a male role model, his attraction to the strange neighbor makes sense, but there’s more to the story than just that.   It’s worth your consideration.