Yahoo Lifestyle If You Watch One Holiday Movie This Weekend: Lifetime’s The Holiday Junkie Is Our Pick
With Hallmark Channel’s annual Countdown to Christmas and Lifetime’s It’s a Wonderful Lifetime now in full swing, and Netflix and other networks loading their sleighs, we’re here once again to help you choose between the season’s many offerings. Each Thursday, we’ll spotlight the original holiday romance that should be at the top of your weekend list and preview why other debuts will make you merry.
THE ONE TO WATCH
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The Holiday Junkie
(premieres Saturday, Dec. 14 at 8 pm on Lifetime)
Jennifer Love Hewitt has never headlined a holiday movie before, but she made up for lost time by developing, directing and starring in this obvious labor of love (she even performs two songs on the soundtrack). She plays professional Christmas decorator and planner Andie, who’s carrying on her late mother’s legacy with the titular company but also dreams of expanding it into a consumer brand. She hopes to impress her newest client, a venture capitalist, by giving his family a picture-perfect holiday. But when the brood gets stuck out of town, Andie finds herself home alone for days with Scrooge house manager Mason (Brian Hallisay, Hewitt’s husband and former The Client List co-star). He has a valid reason for being an ice man in December, but eventually, he thaws. Things heat up. Then way up. Then cool off. Then…well, you’ll have to watch.
There are a lot of films with characters adjusting to Christmas without a parent, but few explore the grief as fully as this one. You’ve never seen a character tear up as many times as Andie does throughout the film — a realistic number, if you’ve been through it yourself. Yet as palpable as the pain is at times (listen for Hewitt’s cover of “Missing You”), so, too, is the tenderness Mason and Andie show each other in certain moments (wait for the Christmas lights). Here’s hoping Hewitt pours her heart into another movie next year.
Runner-Up: The Santa Class
If you like your holiday movies with some Christmas magic — but still shy of the story taking place inside a snow globe — our runner-up pick, The Santa Class (premieres Saturday, Dec. 14 at 8 pm on Hallmark Channel), is for you. Kate North (the always wonderful Kimberley Sustad) is dealing with a lot this season: Her father has handed over the reins of his once-great academy that trains seasonal Santas. To save it, she needs the latest ragtag group of recruits to defeat a rival Santa school in the annual Christmas Cup for the first time ever, with the help of side-switching instructor Dan (Benjamin Ayres, tempering a Buddy the Elf-level enthusiasm). And among those recruits are the real Santa (Holiday Road’s Trevor Lerner), who Kate and Ben discover in the road with amnesia, and Hallmark fave Paul Campbell, who plays himself. Campbell’s hilarious turn, and the sentimental ending, will make this a film you’ll be happy to randomly catch during Countdown to Christmas for years to come.
The Best of the Rest…
Hanukkah on the Rocks (premieres Friday, Dec. 13 at 8 pm on Hallmark Channel)
Laid off corporate lawyer Tory (Stacey Farber) follows radiologist Jay (Daren Kagasoff), the guy who bought the last pack of good Hanukkah candles in Chicago, into a dive bar and unknowingly hits it off with the grandfather (Marc Summers) he’s in town to convince to move to Florida. Before long, Tory’s slinging drinks and turning Rocky’s into a warm Hanukkah-celebrating hotspot. As she and Jay begin to realize what they’ve been missing in their lives, they start to understand why grandpa doesn’t want to leave.
All I Need for Christmas (premieres Thursday, Dec. 12 at 8 pm and repeats Sunday, Dec. 15 at 6 pm on Hallmark Mystery)
Flip phone-toting singer/songwriter Maggie (Mallory Jansen) fears today’s music-making apps have killed her career for good. Which means she’s not thrilled to meet Archer (Dan Jeannotte), the developer of her presumed downfall, at her family’s Christmas tree farm in Vermont. With time, Archer inspires her to see a way forward, and she encourages him to repair his relationship with his sister Piper (Emily Tennant) using his years of therapy spent processing their father’s shockingly toxic holiday tradition. Jansen and Jeannotte play the tension and romance with ease, and aren’t even upstaged by adorable piglets named Johnny and June.
Following Yonder Star (premieres Sunday, Dec. 15 at 8 pm on Hallmark Channel)
Brooke D’Orsay is a layered delight in this sweet rom-com about an actress, Abby, who feels lost after playing a perfect mom on TV for 14 seasons. When a misunderstood outburst in a store goes viral, she flees to Vermont to hide. Then widower innkeeper Tom (John Brotherton, charming when bumbling) needs help directing the children’s pageant he took over in tribute to his late wife. You’ll see the inevitable conflicts coming, but you’ll still ahhh when they’re resolved.
Get Him Back for Christmas (premieres Saturday, Dec. 14 at 8 pm on Great American Family)
On a break with her rock-star boyfriend, up-and-coming singer Bella (Alexa PenaVega) returns home to Dallas for the holidays and convinces her high school songwriting partner, Jack (Carlos PenaVega), to help her pen a tune to win him back. The music (multiple original songs co-written by Carlos) is genuinely catchy and moving as Jack confesses the love he’d always assumed went unrequited (on the field at AT&T Stadium!).
Happy Holidays From Cherry Lane (streaming now on Hallmark+)
The second sequel to last year’s Christmas on Cherry Lane shows us how high school principal Regina (Catherine Bell) and contractor Nelson (James Denton) met during a blizzard in 1998. We’re also introduced to Jessie (Julie Gonzalo), who reluctantly works with her former first love, pastor Tim (Ryan Rottman), to throw a backyard wedding for her sister in 2015, and Penny (Erica Durance), who tries to broker peace between her husband (Benjamin Ayres again) and his widower father (Serge Houde) in 1960. As always, the stories are linked.
Too Many Christmases (streaming now on BET+)
It may look like it’ll be all laughs as newlyweds Jerome and Kayla (Denzel Whitaker and Porscha Coleman) attempt to spend Christmas Day with both of their families, secretly rushing back and forth between homes. But while his mom (Adele Givens) is probably the first person to ever pull a tiny gun from her bra in a holiday movie, actual drama unfolds at her mother’s (Valarie Pettiford) place: Kayla’s pastor grandfather (Willie C. Carpenter) refuses to acknowledge her brother LeeLee (DeShawn Bowens). Difficult conversations are worthy of the screen time they receive. Know the ending is a joyful one.
A Novel Christmas (premieres Sunday, Dec. 15 at 7 on UPtv)
Bestselling children’s book author Chloe (Brigitte Kingsley, who also wrote the script) is at a crossroads: Does she follow her publisher’s orders to stay in her safe, successful lane, or does she follow her heart and risk writing her first novel? A trip to visit family in Noelleville for the first Christmas without her late mother, and a surprise connection with widower bookstore owner Ethan (Landy Cannon) and his daughter Alex (Ariella Cannon), help her decide.
Mistletoe & Matrimony (premieres Saturday, Dec. 14 at 9 pm on OWN)
Chicago wedding planner Olivia (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut) gets a last-minute client for Christmas Eve — her nearly unredeemable bridezilla sister Rosemary (Asha James) — whose fiancée Gwen’s (Krista Nazaire) best friend happens to be Olivia’s ex, travel photographer Isaiah (Etienne Maurice). While Olivia and Isaiah team up to fulfill Rosemary’s demands, their feelings and dreams of launching a destination wedding business together resurface. So do all their past issues.
Christmas Time Is Here! Your Guide to 90+ Holiday Movies on Hallmark, Lifetime, Netflix and More in 2024
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