My Christmas Love (2016, dir. Jeff Fisher)

I was so underwhelmed by A Gift-Wrapped Christmas but something any Search Party fan could tell you is how watchable Meredith Hagner is, hence her second chance at a seasonal lead. Rather than playing a personal shopper with incredible insight into people’s characters, here Hagner plays a children’s author with incredible insight into people’s characters. The range!

We know to root for author Cynthia because she is kind to a young man in the coffee shop, who she instantly recognises as a person preparing to propose. Sadly she isn’t kind enough to tell him that people don’t want to be proposed to in a coffee shop.

Her romantic side doesn’t serve Cynthia however, who’s dumped promptly after gifting her then-boyfriend a “happy five month anniversary” gift. (Nobody tell her five months isn’t an anniversary, we don’t want to kick her while she’s down). Heartbroken but ready to be hurt again, Cynthia takes her illustrator Liam with her to the family homestead. Ahead of her sister’s wedding (we will get to this), Cynthia begins receiving the gifts from The Twelve Gifts of Christmas– from a mystery admirer, who is definitely Liam.

The face of somebody who is being so polite about receiving a drum or a partridge.

Cynthia’s sister, my friend. Why on earth are you getting married on Christmas week? Do you…not want people there? Are you aware of how hard it is for most people to get time off work sufficient to visit family/in-laws/friends without then needing another two days (plus possible travel) for your wedding? Are you happy with your vendors working extra hours and long days around Christmas when they should be with their loved ones/relaxing? Do you want to combine the grief at your mother not being there on your wedding day with the grief at your mother not being there at Christmas? Are you looking to catch pneumonia by getting married in a barn in December?

These are just yknow, off the top of my head.

Here’s Cynthia’s sister and her fiance, applauding my logic. The wedding has been moved to spring.

Cynthia’s plot? That’s fine. It’s fluffy, everyone wears red, her dad is the only character I care for (he has to help organise a wedding and house a sudden influx of live birds). It is, if anything, relentlessly fine.

Rating: HoHo/HoHoHo