A Very Meta Christmas

Hallmark making fun of itself in their own movies seems to be a bit of a thing lately. They take all of the usual Romantic Comedy ingredients, fold in all of the cliches and tropes that are exclusive to Hallmark itself, and fill up a movie with them. If I was a cynic, I would be  a little suspicious that it’s an excuse to get another Christmas movie in the tank without having to think of an original plot. And they can still say, “ Hey, aren’t we clever? See how we are laughing at ourselves!? Our movies are filled with cliches but that’s OK!”  I thought this was the way this one was going and I felt the tedium coming on, but then it took a turn.  And I started to really enjoy it.

 We meet lawyer Emily (Maggie Lawson), her architect husband (Brendon Zub-love him) and her two teenage children. Although the family love each other, we see there are troubles a brewin’ . Emily is over-organized and tightly wound. She is determined to give her family “the perfect Christmas” (or else) so they can reconnect and become closer together the way it used to be. We see her husband is overworked by his bully of a boss who has been making his and all of his coworkers miserable since his divorce. “It’s like I’m working for Scrooge, but instead of 3 fun ghosts, he’s just haunted by regret.” Their son is struggling in a new school and feels like an outsider. Emily’s relationship with her daughter though is the most troubled. Nina has dreams of being a singer and going away to a performing arts school. Emily discounts her dream and insists she go to the university close to home and study for a more practical career.

Emily gets to the office and and her assistant is watching the famous  and beloved series of Sugarplum Christmas movies. Sugarplum saves a bakery, Sugarplum meets a secret holiday Prince, etc. They have a long conversation over the rules of Christmas movies, as seen on the “Harmony Home Network”, where following these rules will always result in a perfect Christmas for the cast of characters. Later that evening, Emily wishes on one of her mother’s old ornaments, a Christmas star, for the perfect Christmas to make her family happy and create special memories like her mother did for her. Christmas Magic happens and Sugarplum herself appears, a little discombobulated over being sucked out of her perfect Christmas movie world and into the real one, where she assumes things will work just as smoothly as she is used to. And at first, it does! Everything goes according to the rules in her very thick Christmas rule book (which she pulls out of her bottomless purse where all of her fashionable coats and matching accessories also live.)

**Spoilers**

She replaces the artificial tree with the perfect real one, which she cuts down herself from Emily’s grinchy neighbor’s yard. She uses a magic snow globe to cause a snowfall inside the son’s school which proves very popular with the students and helps him bond with his classmates. She solves a dispute between one of Emily’s clients, the owner of an old ski lodge/Christmas tree farm and a developer who wants to knock it down and put up a resort. Sugarplum takes one look at the couple (played by Fiona Gubelman and Victor Webster, Hallmark regulars in amusing cameo performances) and knows they are destined to fall in love and come to a compromise solution on their own. And they do! Right before our eyes! Lots of other stuff happens, and Emily is well on her way to her “perfect” Christmas. Except her family is still disconnected and stressed out.

But then things start to go awry for poor Sugarplum and Emily. Sugarplum meets a handsome man by an elevator (another cameo-this time by Carlo Marks) and romance beckons, as it does when elevators are involved in Rom-Coms. Until he serves her with a summons for criminal trespass (the Christmas tree incident). The rapprochement between Emily’s  client and the developer turns out to be nothing but a ruse to get her to sell her land to him. And finally, Sugarplum is thrown in jail for starting the snowstorm and snow ball fight in the school lobby and causing damage to government property. Also, the police are very suspicious because “Sue Garplum” doesn’t exist according to the internet and she might be a terrorist(?) because her fingerprints all look like snowflakes. Apparently Sugarplum’s Christmas magic is fading due to all of the heavy lifting needed bringing magic to the real world. It’s just getting worn out. Can anything revive it? Hmmm. I wonder. Maybe Emily learning the true spirit of Christmas? In the meantime, it’s a good thing she is a lawyer.

After a slow start, this turned out to be one of the most entertaining, funny, and clever of  2024’s Christmas movies. At first, Janel Parrish as Sugarplum seemed too over the top cheerful and perky. She was getting on my nerves and I was getting antsy. Emily’s blindness to what would truly make a warm and wonderful family Christmas was frustrating. She confides that her favorite childhood memory with her late mother was the Christmas all of their presents were stolen, the tree caught on fire, and they ended up spending Christmas day in a motel. But it was great because they were together! She won’t listen to her own words! Her assistant, seeing Emily’s holiday stress, advises her to quit chasing perfection and live in the moment.  Emily cynically tells her she sounds like a Christmas movie and discounts that advice, which turns out to be the lesson of the whole movie. But then things got great.  I think it all turned around for me when Emily, fully invested in Sugarplum’s magic, makes gingerbread cookies even though she doesn’t have any ginger. But that doesn’t matter because in Christmas movies all cookies are delicious and perfect even if they don’t have all the ingredients! “I didn’t have any ginger so I just threw in a whole bottle of gin!”,  she boasts. Luckily, Sugarplum “couldn’t drink another bite.” because last thing we need is a drunk Sugarplum.

Being a Hallmark movie, Emily finally gets the message, the faded magic returns, and everything comes together for her and her loved ones in all phases of their lives. But it’s all about the journey to the inevitable happy ending, isn’t it? For Emily’s family, all is resolved very poignantly at the school Christmas Pageant starring Emily’s singing daughter.  But there’s more! The final scenes back home, with some unexpected visitors, were funny, surprising, and are what really tied the bow on top of this almost perfect gift of a movie.  Right down to the kiss under the mistletoe.

All of the actors in this did well but Maggie Lawson and Brendan Zub were perfectly cast and I was glad to see them again as Hallmark leads after such a long time. Kyra Leroux was also as stand out as Emily’s rightly resentful and talented daughter. The imperfections in her singing at the beginning turned out to be perfect in the end, reflecting the moral of the story. This movie was a solid 8 1/2 or 9 but those last scenes were just so fun.