Yahoo Lifestyle The Best & Battiest Moments From This Past Weekend’s Holiday Movies
Once again it’s the season to be merry and watch every new holiday movie as it debuts! Each Monday, we’ll take a look back at the previous weekend’s premieres to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year with a new list of superlatives.
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Most Unexpected Seduction
In OWN’s 24-Karat Christmas, Booker (Curtis Hamilton) told stressed-out jewelry designer Trish (Samantha Marie Ware) to close her eyes and savor the cookie he gave her. “Don’t just swallow it. Like, really taste it. Let the sugar crystals melt on your tongue. Feel the crispy outer edges, the soft middle. Breathe in the spices,” he said, circling her. Made us blush.
Hottest Trend
If, like us, you’ve watched more than 100 holiday movies this season, you’ve heard “my parents are on cruise” a lot. This week alone, that excuse was given for an unwed child spending the holidays solo in 24-Karat Christmas, Lifetime’s A Carpenter Christmas Romance and Hallmark Channel’s Happy Howlidays. It is a convenient way to get the family out of the picture without having to kill them off. But also… are we going to see a Christmas movie set on a cruise ship in 2025? Maybe best-friend divorcées (played by Teri Hatcher and Brooke Shields) decide to take a holiday cruise when their adult children each decide to spend Christmas with their spouse’s family.
Decoration Debate of the Week
How do we really feel about Rebecca’s (Brooke D’Orsay) pink-and-green circa 2000 color scheme in Hallmark+’s Deck the Halls on Cherry Lane?
Most Ill-Prepared for the Weather
Not to sound like your overprotective mother, but it flurried so often in Lifetime’s Engaged by Christmas that we find it shocking that professional romantic event planner Zoe (Brittany Bristow) and advice columnist Adam (Marcus Rosner) weren’t wearing hats on this stroll, during which they complained about being cold!
Most Optimal Weather Forecast
Forget the snow in holiday movies. We need rain, so guys like dog rescue owner Max (Finding Mr. Christmas winner Ezra Moreland) can get caught without an umbrella in Seattle and need to change into something dry in Hallmark’s Happy Howlidays. See also: the sudden downpour in A Carpenter Christmas Romance that led the titular artisanal woodworker Seth (Mitchell Slaggert) and fantasy-romance novelist Andrea (Sasha Pieterse) indoors for a sex scene.
Best Shirtless Scenes
We’re giving this to A Carpenter Christmas Romance for the surprise I-use-the-shower-in-your-family’s-farmhouse-sometimes reunion of Seth and Andrea and their pillow talk in bed with them each eating their own pint of ice cream and him admitting he’d read her novels.
Best Use of Slo-Mo
Time literally slowed as Andrea watched Seth (and his biceps) carry wood in A Carpenter Christmas Romance. He smirked. He knew what he was doing.
Biggest Missed Opportunity
Great American Family’s A Royal Christmas Ballet told the story of Prince William (Jonathan Stoddard) attempting to court retired American dancer Carrie (Brittany Underwood) while his country’s prima ballerina, Medea (Daniela Couso), grew increasingly jealous. Seeing Medea secretly watch them and seethe as Prince William excitedly rode his first-ever carousel made us wish this was a Lifetime movie. Couso has the range to go dark. Instead, Medea was ultimately redeemed. She suggested William gift Carrie the bracelet she’d been coveting and even tried it on for him. Boo!
Best Twist
In BET+’s Queens of Christmas, frenemies Doris (Terri J. Vaughn) and Julia (Vanessa Bell Calloway) and their decorating-contest nemesis, neighbor Nancy (Essence Atkins), competed to become the undiscovered lead in the next film from Oscar-winning director Patrick St. Thomas, aka “the godfather of Black Cinema.” Cut to their final audition when they met the reclusive, condescending White man (played by Gary Budoff). Let’s just say they finally presented a united front.
Most Anti-Climatic Chase Scene
UPtv’s North by North Pole: A Dial S Mystery had interior designer Zoey (Abby Ross) and architect Dalton (Joe Scarpellino) chase after the person they thought was breaking into a storage room to sabotage their festival, only to discover investigative journalist Alyx (Kiarra Goldberg)…who ran right into an inflatable snowman.
Conversation Starter of the Week
Hallmark Channel’s Trading Up Christmas was inspired by people who really spend years making increasingly valuable trades to turn something small, like a rubber band or paper clip, into something large, like a house. In the film, Michelle (Italia Ricci) managed to parlay an heirloom Christmas stocking into a home for her sister and niece in 10 days, with the final trade being an old RV she’d acquired, plus her dad’s recently bartered sailboat, for the house. Who’s already talked about trying this (and decided you don’t have the patience)?
Best Meet-Cute
The zoom-in close-ups of pups Jules and Russell when they met at the dog rescue were a sweet surprise in Happy Howlidays.
Sexiest Xmas Sweater
We’re playing it safe by choosing Seth’s chunky knit in the “one year later” epilogue in A Carpenter Christmas Romance. We’re simply not sure if the thin, tight-fitting top Max donned while dancing and singing at work in Happy Howlidays can be described as a sweater.
Christmas Time Is Here! Your Guide to 100 Holiday Movies on Hallmark, Lifetime, Netflix and More in 2024
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