Or is it Nice or Naughty?

**Spoilers**

In 2023 and so far in 2024, I have neglected the Lifetime Christmas movies in favor of Hallmark. Perhaps I forgot that Lifetime’s “It’s a Wonderful Lifetime” has produced  some of my favorite movies, often with Hallmark stars. Case in point is A Snowed Inn Christmas starring Bethany Joy Lenz and Andrew Walker. I had never even seen this ancient 2011 movie, Naughty or Nice, until just a couple of days ago, and it was just excellent. Well, it turns out that it was a Hallmark production after all but I could have sworn I found it on Lifetime-On-Demand. Dang. I guess not. More research is needed. Why is this gem not on Hallmarks regular rotation? But anyway, I will still be re-visiting the Lifetime channel this year for sure.

Unhappily named Krissy Kringle who, just as unhappily, lives on Christmas decoration-obsessed Candy Cane Lane (“They changed the name after I moved here!”), often gets mail addressed to Santa Claus. She has a very nice boyfriend but is having a very bad day. She has had to take a job as a Christmas Elf because she shockingly got fired from her important marketing job. Krissy is already somewhat of a Grinch and this temporary job has not helped. The only bright spot to her new circumstances is her new friendship with an equally cynical co-elf named Marco, a co-hater of their petty tyrant of a boss.  When she gets home from work and starts going through all the mail (throwing the Kris Kringle letters in the trash) she comes across a large fancy book titled Naughty or Nice. She soon finds out that when she says someone’s name out loud in front of the book, it opens and turns to their personal naughty page. She starts using the book to find out the guilty secrets of those who have crossed her in order to put things right exact revenge. She starts with her and Marco’s current boss who has been stealing the petty cash meant to buy the elves their daily lunch. She blackmails him into decorating her barren yard with all of the extra department store Christmas bling to get the neighbors, particularly one called Debbie, off her back.  Then she finds out she was fired due to the skullduggery of her office mate she thought was her friend, and that her neighbor, mean and snooty Debbie, has been stealing everyone else on Candy Cane Lane’s decorations to ensure she wins first prize in the annual contest. Finally, when her nice boyfriend, Lance, breaks still another date to work late, Marco talks her into checking him out in the Naughty or Nice book. What she finds out causes her to break up with him in a rage humiliating him in front of his boss and work colleagues. It was quite horrifying. Krissy has gotten her revenge, but now she is miserable.

Her conscience getting to her, she talks things over with her mother and father (Meredith Baxter-Birney and Michael Gross!). Her mother reminds her that there is always two sides to any coin and encourages her to talk to Lance and get his side of the story because she knows him to be an honorable guy who really loves Krissy. Inspired by her mother’s words she goes home and turns the book upside down which reveals the Nice but Naughty side. Nice twist, that I probably should have seen coming.  Now she learns that several of the people whose shameful secrets she exposed and humiliated are really good hearted people who have done tons of nice things but who got off track a little. This includes neighbor Debbie and Lance, her boyfriend. But is it too late to make things right? Debbie has been run out of the neighborhood by a Christmas Lynch Mob (“Kill the Beast!”), and her boyfriend won’t speak to her.

This movie was just delightful thanks to the comic performance of Hilarie Burton Morgan and the many clever lines, that were probably quite original for 2011, and funny situations. At one point Krissy complains to her father, “He cheated on me with a girl that stabbed me in the back, got me fired, and took my job!” Dad rightly mumbles that she sounds like a Country-Western song. There were a lot of laughs but then it turns around and touches your heart and delivers a powerful for-Hallmark-lesson that good people can sometimes do bad things. No one is perfect. Do not be so quick to judge but be quick to forgive.

Krissy even gets her old job back, thanks to Lance and an important assist from the newly redeemed Debbie. The movie predictably concludes with the appearance of the owner of the book. The Hallmark-Perfect ending!