My rating: ???

A Heavenly Christmas has Kristin Davis (Charlotte from Sex and the City, and Holiday In the Wild), Eric McCormack (Will from Will & Grace) and Shirley MacLaine (from Terms of Endearment, and a lot of other films!).

Kristin Davis plays Eve, who puts her work above her family.  She is always rushing around on her phone, trying to get new clients as she has her eye set on a partnership that is due to be announced.  She trips, and hits her head, and finds herself with Pearl (Shirley MacLaine) in a white place, in white clothes, and is told that she’s died, but she can do some good for those still alive.  She just can’t talk to anyone she knew in life, and she can’t tell her family where she is.

Max (Eric McCormack) looks after his niece after her parents (his sister and singing partner) died in a car accident.  He has a diner, and whilst he wants to do more with his music, since his sister died he really hasn’t been feeling that engaged with it.

Eve needs to help Max to find his passion for music again, and at the same time discover what is important in life.

I thought the film was fine.  It didn’t blow me away, and didn’t do anything unexpected! Unremarkable is probably a good word for it.  I did like that Kristin Davis and Eric McCormack were in it, considering both Sex and the City and Will & Grace started the same year (1998), so that was appealing, otherwise it’s a film you can skip!

My rating: ?????

Call Me Claus has Whoopi Goldberg as Lucy, who is a producer on a home shopping network.  Nigel Hawthorne plays Santa aka Nick, who is looking for his replacement, and Lucy manages to hire him to play Santa on the home shopping network.

Hijinks ensue with Nick saying things like ‘Jumping Jingle Bells’, which I loved as a phrase!  He needs to persuade Lucy that he’s Santa, and that she’s the person who can replace him, as he has been Santa for 200 years, otherwise there’s an Or Else clause, which means the end of days!

I really enjoyed this! The acting was fabulous, the storyline was fun, and Whoopi is always great in films!

It is looking like my favourite films, for the most part, are fantasy films, which involve Santa!

My review: ???

Yes, I went from Nativity! to Nativity 2 which might have been a mistake!

Martin Freeman from the first film has been replaced by David Tennant, and so we have to have a set up for why this new teacher is coming in, and what his problem is.  His problems are he doesn’t get on with his twin, his wife is very pregnant, and his father has come to stay.

The first film was fun and different.  The second film is very much following in the footsteps of the first, and is a family film.  

The first film had who put on the best nativity.  This film is about who can sing the best.  Oh, and the other twin is leading his school in the singing competition, and is tipped to be first place.

I think if you have small children, they will probably love this film. Some of it is sweet, some of it is a bit too whacky for me!  It might also be a film to not watch back to back! with the first!

Nativity! is the second British film on my list, with Last Christmas being the first, and you can read my review here!

My rating: ????

Jingle Belle is the second film with Tatyana Ali that I’ve watched this Christmas! The first one was Christmas Everlasting, and you can read my review here!

Bella is a singer/ songwriter who writes jingles. And now you know why the film is called Jingle Belle!

Belle lives in New York, and with so many of these films, she doesn’t go home for Christmas much.  She gets writers block, and when her boss hears that Belle’s sister wants her help writing a song for the Christmas Eve show in her home town, she gets sent to help out!

Belle used to perform at the Christmas Eve show with her ex-boyfriend, who is now the high school music teacher, and in charge of the Christmas Eve show.

It was a fun film, and I enjoyed the chemistry between the two as they wrote the songs.  It was all Christmasy, and only a little cheesy!

My rating: ??

The Knight before Christmas is a Netflix special, with Vanessa Hudgens.

Sir Cole meets a witch in the woods, and gets transported to the present, where he appears in a Christmas village, and manages to stumble into the road.

Brooke is a high school science teacher, who hits Sir Cole with her car as he appears in the road.  She feels so guilty, she goes to the hospital with him, and when he insists he’s a medieval knight, she takes him home to recover.  This is the beginning of my problems with this film!

There were moments where I was just sitting watching the film, and thinking ‘why?’.  

It was an ok film, but jerked me out of suspension of disbelief too many times, so not a film that I would recommend, unless you need to watch it so you can talk to people about it!

My rating: ????

Let’s not beat around the bush here, Holiday in the Wild is not a Christmas film.  I believed it was, and the original title was Christmas in the Wild, and there are some Christmas scenes, but really, this is in the same vein as Wild, Eat Pray Love, where a woman goes away and discovers herself, and something she’s passionate about.

This film was one that Kristin Davis was trying to get made for a while, as she is passionate about elephant conservation.

Now we’ve got all that out of the way, let’s talk about the film! Kristin Davis plays Kate, a New Yorker, whose son is off to college for the first time, and whose husband announces, as soon as the son has left, that he wants a divorce as he’s no longer happy.  Kate had booked a safari as a surprise for them both, as a second honeymoon, so they could reconnect.  So she goes off on the safari on her own.

Rob Lowe (yes, big names in this Netflix film!) plays Derek, a small plane pilot, who takes people on their safaris, but who lives at an elephant sanctuary, and who is always on the lookout for hurt or killed elephants.  He spots a dead elephant with a living calf on the flight to take Kate to her safari, and so diverts to call in help.  Kate decides to go with the calf, and announces that she’s a former vet, who stopped practicing, but can help out, and so decides to do that instead of going on safari.

Whilst this wasn’t a Christmas film, I did enjoy it.  The setting is beautiful, the story was enjoyable and I liked the story of self discovery.

My rating: ????

Mrs Miracle has James Van Der Beek (I very much enjoyed him in Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23, and haven’t ever seen Dawson’s Creek, sorry!), and Erin Karpluk (Being Erica, a very good series) in it, and when I saw that, I immediately stopped the film, so I could watch it with my husband, who loves both of these actors for the same reasons as me, plus, he did watch Dawson’s Creek!

James  Van Der Beek plays Seth, a widower with 2 energetic young boys, and a series of house keepers/ nanny’s, who quit due to them!  Erin Karpluk plays Reba, a travel agent who hasn’t been to any of the places that she’s selling to her clients, and desperately wants to go.

Along comes Mrs Merkle, who has a way with things, who knows how to handle the boys, and who puts Seth and Reba in each other’s way.

This was an enjoyable fantasy Christmas story, that I would watch again, and I have the second film saved up to watch soon!

My rating: ???

Christmas Bells Are Ringing has Samantha, a freelance photographer, go to Cape Cod for Christmas for her father’s wedding.  She has only ever been there for summer before so finds a lot of new traditions that she didn’t know about, like the snowman moving around the town magically.

This is the first time she’s been back since her mother died of cancer, and so there are decisions to make about the family home there, with Samantha’s father’s bride to be having a home locally, they don’t need the family home.

Samantha has submitted photos to a competition in a paper for a Christmas layout, and to get a jo with them as she wants to leave being freelance behind, but then finds out she needs to submit more photos before 23d December.  She needs to take them in Cape Cod, and so when she meets Mike, a childhood friend, who knows the area really well, he takes her around, so she can take all the photos she needs.

This was a Christmas romance film, with a lot of Christmas in there.  It was a little cheesy, but it was definitely a Christmas film!

My rating: ????

Annie Claus is Coming to Town is a sweet romance with fantasy, which I enjoyed!  Annie Claus is Santa’s only child, and she has to go out into the world for a while to see if she wants to live there, or take over Santa’s workshop some time in the future.

Annie is super efficient, and knows a lot about toys, which is really helpful to a little toy shop that she stumbles across near her motel in Los Angeles.  The owner, Ted, has given up hope, and has a large loan to pay back just before Christmas, so when Annie says she’ll volunteer in his shop, he’s pleased, but doesn’t see that this will be the turn around.

If Annie is to stay in the world, that would mean that the head elf would get to take over Santa’s workshop! The head elf has employed an actor to make Annie think that he’s fallen in love with her, so she’ll want to stay! 

I thought this was an enjoyable light film, that made me feel this really was a Christmas film.  If you spot it, give it a watch!