My rating: ????

In A Cinderella Christmas Angie works for her uncle’s business with her cousin, who takes all the credit for successes they have. Nicolas is a wealthy bachelor, and is hosting a Christmas masquerade party that Angie is event planning.  They get talking when she goes to the party, and fall for each other, but Angie had promised her cousin she wouldn’t go to the party, so runs away.

I thought this was sweet, even if a little ‘what?’ in places. 

It was very much Cinderella, but not a lot of Christmas.

My rating: ???

Lucy is a lawyer in a New York based law firm, and she is looking forward to her elder sister, who has a disability, coming to visit.  Then she gets a call from her uncle to say that her sister has died.  Lucy is in shock, and has to go home for the funeral, and to sort out her sister’s things.

When Lucy is home, she finds out that she can inherit the house her sister lived in, if she lives there for 30 days.  Otherwise, her sister has said it will go to the local pet sanctuary.   Lucy wants the house, and so she stays around, and learns just how important her sister was to the community.  Lucy also has to confront her past, as she feels guilty about the accident that lead to her sister being disabled.  She was going to see Lucy to tell her something when the accident happened.

You know there has to be a love interest, and it’s Lucy’s boyfriend that she split up with from the time of her sister’s crash.  He’s her sister’s lawyer, so he knows more about Lucy and her sister than most people, and so also knows why Lucy is hanging around, so no awkward moment on that front!

There was a lot of self discovery, some romance, and a sprinkling of Christmas.  I’m trying to decide if it was enough Christmas to make me call this a Christmas film, and I think the answer is no.  It was a nice film, but not a Christmas film.

And I think nice sums it up.  It was fine, but another film that I wouldn’t be digging out to watch again!

My rating: ????

An entire film with George Michael songs only, entitled Last Christmas… I didn’t know what to expect, but in my head I had thought rom-com, from the trailer, I had seen.


I was partially correct. I don’t want to spoil the film, so I‘m just going to talk about the early bits, but try to tell you what I thought!


Emilia Clarke (yes, Daenerys from Game of Thrones, and wow does she have expressive eyebrows. I don’t think I had appreciated them much before!) plays a young woman, Katarina aka Kate, who makes bad choices and doesn’t understand how her life can be this awful.

Emma Thompson plays her mother, who escaped with her family from Yugoslav. She is pretty dramatic, and drives Kate nuts.


Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) plays Tom, who appears in Kate’s life, showing her things she had never seen or appreciated before. “Look up!” is something he says a lot when they first meet.

Kate works at a year round Christmas shop and dresses as an elf, with Michelle Yeoh playing the shop owner, called Santa.

This was a Christmas film with a message of looking outside yourself to see how you can help others lines to make yourself happy.

All in all, I enjoyed the film! I think I’ve only seen vague adverts, as reading IMDB I saw that people had guessed the entire plot 3 months ago as the adverts were too obvious! So, don’t watch those!

It’s more like It’s a Wonderful Life than Love Actually in that I mean I was sobbing my little heart out, but the two people I went with weren’t. I’m a cryer, though! I cried at Dumbo (the original, not sure I on put myself through the new one).

To sum up, do go and see Last Christmas. I enjoyed it, as did the other two (the non cryers!) that I went with. It was a very Christmasy film, and it was interesting listening to all of the George Michael songs throughout!

My rating: ???

Christmas Joy has Joy, a market researcher in a big city, having to rush home as her aunt has had a bad fall. When she gets there, she learns the best thing she can do to help out is to help out with the Cookie Crawl. No, I had never heard of such a thing either! Apparently it’s where people decorate their houses inside in creative ways and themes, and offer cookies, with the best house winning.

Joy’s aunt has taken part in this Cookie Crawl for years, and has help from Ben, who Joy used to fancy when they were both young. Ben offers Joy help, but Joy tells him she can do it on her own.

This was a fun Christmas film, with Christmas events, and failure a possibility if Joy doesn’t acknowledge that she needs help! All round, there are worse films to watch!

My rating: ???

Home For Christmas Day has an Army widow (Jane) with a daughter (Betsy) about to head off to college, and then Betsy falls for a solider (Tyler).

Jane is unhappy about the situation as she doesn’t want her daughter to have her heart broken if something happens to Tyler. This is because Jane hasn’t moved on since the death of her husband, but does have a very good friend, Jackson, the owner of the diner that Betsy works at, and where she met Tyler.

This was another romcom for me more than a Christmas film, and there’s only one scene that I can think of as Christmasy, and overall it just felt a bit cheesy.  

My rating: ???

A Belle for Christmas is a family Christmas film, with Dean Cain as a widower with 2 children, and a new girlfriend that the children don’t like very much.

This film made me think of The Parent Trap, with the new girlfriend playing the part of the villain. In the Parent Trap, the girlfriend’s plan is to send the twins off to boarding school.  In this film, it’s to get rid of the dog as she’s allergic.

It did make me think of Christmas, as there were Christmas events happening throughout the film.  All in all, it was a funny romp, with some cheesy acting, and probably I’d probably skip seeing again as it really is aimed at children.

My rating: ???

Mr Christmas aka The Perfect Christmas Present is about Tom, whose job is to find the perfect present for your mother, brother, or in this case, an old fraternity brother’s girlfriend.  

Tom does this by immersing himself in how the person thinks, so he can know the person very well.  What’s especially stark is the boyfriend not knowing his girlfriend, and forever dashing off to meetings or working out, and so you get the impression he’s not making the effort with her.

This felt more like a romcom than a Christmas film.  It was about Tom getting to know Jenny, and falling for her.  It’s interesting writing these reviews as I reflect on what the films make me remember as I write about them, and there’s often a Christmas scene that I remember.  I’m really struggling with this one!

I think my conclusion on this is that it was an enjoyable film, but not a Christmas one. It was light and funny in places, but it was also pretty cheesy, which isn’t always a negative!

My rating: ??

Yes, that’s not a good amount of bells, is it!

It wasn’t a very good film, either!

Poppy has taken over her grandmother’s flower shop, and is struggling financially.  Then she hears about a Christmas floristry show that she can enter and win prize money that can help her stay open.  

Garrett Hurley works at a large floristry firm (I’m writing this, and I’m still not convinced, and we’ve not gotten to the best part yet), where he sits in a suit, and draws pictures of floristry arrangements (nearly there), because that’s his job (there we go!).  Yes, I wasn’t sure what was going on either.  

But, Garrett is one of Poppy’s competitor’s at the floristry show.  And of course, they fall for each other.  

I think one of my other issues with the film is summed up by the fact that her van breaks down all the time, and her mechanic can magically come and fix it wherever, and that when she calls him to come and stand as part of her team (yes, apparently she needed backup more than her father, her friend/employee…she needed the mechanic), he rushed over not knowing why, and then agreed to stand there so that the team didn’t look small.  The floristry show was more important than his livelihood.

Suspension of disbelief is fine, but this film wanted to bounce me out of that in the above ways.  It was ok on the Christmas feel, but that was because they were making floral displays about Christmas themes.

My verdict is, skip it, delete it, go watch something else.  Let’s just pretend this didn’t happen, ok?!

My review: ????

A Christmas to Remember has a successful TV personality (think Martha Stewart esque for the crafting, cooking, baking and making your home a home type) is going away for Christmas to have some time to relax, and try to remember that Christmas is more than just work.

Except, her car slides off the road, she knocks her head, and forgets everything!  She’s rescued by a local widower vet, and taken home to his children where she starts to bring back some of the magic of Christmas for them, whilst trying to remember who she is.

A little like Overboard, but they don’t lie to her, or make her do things she doesn’t want to do!

I enjoyed the film!  It was Christmasy, funny and good chemistry!

My rating: ????

Hello, and yes, I’m going for 1 film a day throughout December, and I’m not regretting my life choices (she says, on day 2!).

Happily, I’m starting doing this with a backlog of films to tell you about, as I’ve been recording and watching them in November, and my DVR box is looking pretty full, which can only mean there’s more Christmas films to tell you about!

Enough about the behind the scenes of this, and more about this film!

A Gingerbread Romance was a great film as far as Christmas films go!

Taylor is an architect who believes her way is the best way.  She’s very used to moving around as she’s done it her whole life, and she’s up for a promotion which will mean another city.  But, for Christmas, she’s at home, and her architecture firm wants her to take part in a life size gingerbread house competition, and to work with a baker to do this.

Adam is a talented baker in a very repetitive role at a bakery.  He dreams of one day having his own bakery.  He gets dragged into helping Taylor with the gingerbread house competition, and he and his young daughter helps Taylor to remember what Christmas is about.

This did make me feel like it was Christmas, and whilst I winced at the piping, I did enjoy the story!