Holiday Favorites

Everyone has their vices.  Some smoke.  Some drink.  Some read fan fiction or romance novels, while others overeat or oversleep.  I watch made-for-TV holiday movies with highly predictable plot lines, terrible acting, and even worse writing.

To each their own.

So, as I waste my vacation away in front of the television, accidentally staining my couch with chocolate and talking to my cat, I thought I would share with you just a few reviews of the movies that make this time of year so great.


A Dogwalker's Christmas Tale

Storyline: An unemployed and shallow college student who never goes to classes or does any kind of work whatsoever gets dumped by a guy she barely knows but for whom she maxed out her (parents') credit card to buy a Christmas present that she oddly cannot return.  Broke and at best put-out, she returns to her parents' very large home for the holidays to find that they have abandoned her for volunteer work in Africa.  Driven by her materialistic urges, she agrees to take care of a neighbor's dog for a week or two for something like a thousand dollars in sum.  She meets a handsome but dyslexic vet-to-be in a dog park, and pretty soon, she's falling in love and fighting to save the park from becoming the day spa she's always wanted.

Moral(s):
When you give your child too much money, you're basically ruining their lives.
Dog walking is still looked down upon, even when you make bank.
(Also, in an incredibly forced turn of events:) Women can be high-level executives, too.

Netflix rating: 2.5/5 stars
IMDB rating: 5.6/10 stars
Rotten Tomatoes rating: Does not merit critic viewing, 33% viewers liked it
Rebekah rating: Great eyebrows on male lead 🔥

Holiday Bingo rating:

Christmas in the Smokies

Storyline: A hard-working, beautiful woman in rural Tennessee faces massive, crisis-level debt that she somehow didn't realize was a problem until now.  With a grinchy old man threatening to buy her family's rural farm out from under them to build a viable but tourist-related business, it'll take everything she's got to keep her farm and preserve the town the way it's always been.  Sixty-thousand dollars in debt and less than three weeks to foreclosure, she begrudgingly turns to the high school sweetheart turned famous country singer that abandoned her long ago but is now back in town.  Amazingly, they're able to save the farm and their love.

Moral(s):
Rural America does not like change.
Americans have serious debt problems.
You can't leave people out in the cold no matter how much money they have or what they've done to you.

Netflix rating: 3.6/5 stars
IMDB rating: 6.8/10 stars
Rotten Tomatoes rating: Does not merit critic viewing, 22% viewers liked it
Rebekah rating: Great smile on male lead 🔥🔥

Holiday Bingo rating:

The Spirit of Christmas

Storyline: A career-driven woman who doesn't believe in ghosts stays at a purportedly haunted inn over the holidays in order to sell it and get a promotion.  There, an incredibly handsome hipster ghost who was murdered a hundred years ago tries to get her to leave until they join forces to find out why he died and help him pass on.  They figure it out, fall in love, and sell the house all in a matter of two weeks.

Moral(s):
Don't trust people who do illegal things, unless they're really handsome.  Then they're probably okay.
Moody, hundred year old ghosts can cure you of your inability to love.


Netflix rating: 4/5 stars
IMDB rating: 6.6/10 stars
Rotten Tomatoes rating: Does not merit critic viewing, 60% viewers liked it
Rebekah rating: Nice everything on male lead. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Holiday Bingo rating:

My Santa

Storyline: Santa's son Chris only has a short period of time to find a wife before he loses the opportunity to take over the family business.  Jen, a single mom who was abandoned seven years ago by her (surprisingly unattractive) husband, has a hard time reconciling her baggage with her young son's love of Christmas.  Feeling lonely, she dates two men at once: the cute but casual new guy at work and the doting but kind of stalkerish boy-next-door Chris.  As she decides between two, Chris finds that his Santa powers grow as his love for Jen does - she's surely the one!  He tells her who he really is, and she freaks out (normal) before running to the other guy who she wasn't really seeing anymore and asks if he's ready for a serious relationship with her and her son (not normal).  He's not into it, so then she's all alone, but because her son cries, she has a change of heart, and Chris, Jen, and kid all live happily ever after at the North Pole.

Moral(s):
Somewhere in America, you too can be a journalist at a dying newspaper with a kid and no second income and have a ridiculously nice house with decorative plates, two ovens, and a brick backsplash.
Jerry Gergich is too good for this movie.

Netflix rating: 2.8/5 stars
IMDB rating: 6.0/10 stars
Rotten Tomatoes rating: Does not merit critic viewing, 60% viewers liked it (who are these people?)
Rebekah rating: Kind of painful to watch, but Matthew Lawrence has still got it. 🔥

Holiday Bingo rating: So close

(All these movies can be found on Netflix!  Shout out to the Ruf family for sharing this amazing Holiday Bingo card, which I displayed here without express permission...I hope they're not mad.)