The Hallmark Channel,
Jodie Sweetin, Eric Winter, Laura Mitchell, Jay Brazeau, Karen Holness, Ava Telekm, Brenden Sunderland, Katey Hoffman, Karen Kruper, Dolores Drake
Grace Long (Jodie Sweetin) has taken over for her parents, managing their business and continuing their tradition of managing the town’s Christmas parade, but Tom White (Jay Brazeau) who always plays the role of Santa is laid up this year and unable to pull it off. Tom has been teaching a well known Santa school teaching others how to play the jolly old man. One of his top students was his son Ben (Eric Winter) who has moved to Los Angeles to get away from the family Christmas tradition. Tom had hoped Ben would be happy to take his place, but Ben wants nothing to do with it. But Grace is in a bad way, as this year’s parade is being covered by network TV. Ben and Grace lock horns with her trying to convince him to step up, and with him refusing to listen.
The real message of this Christmas tale is about putting your life on hold to follow someone else’s dreams. To that extent, it’s rather successful. I did enjoy Jodie Sweetin in her role, and I think she handled it pretty well. There’s no real suspense or danger here, and the problems are rather superficial, but this is entertainment, and it is a decent little story. It doesn’t have a lot of depth, but it light and festive, and a good enough movie for the holiday lineup. Personally, I think they are stretching themselves a little too thin tyring to bring out dozens of new films, and we might be better served with half as many with the best of the scripts, but as long as the market clamors for more, there’s no reason not to keep cranking them out. After all, Christmas in the U.S. has turned into a marathon starting at Veterans Day, so that’s the way it is. This is harmless and relatively brainless entertainment, and at that, it does it’s job./span>
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
