Can you learn to cook improvisationally under high pressure in just two weeks!? Let’s find out in A Christmas Recipe for Romance!

Big city guy hates small towns, but here he is for at a small town inn for vacation. He’s a famous, bitter, rude celebrity chef. 

Small town girl runs the inn. It’s grandma’s inn! She’s hopeless at cooking; famous for it, in fact. Don’t let her near a kitchen, friends!

Oh no, we need to save the inn! Coincidentally, we JUST booked the entire cast and crew of a live cooking competition in our inn. A crew that suddenly decided, just weeks before airing, to film this year’s event in this little town. Oh, and they still haven’t settled on the “hometown flavor” guest who gets to compete, so there’s still time to apply to be on the show. The prize money is almost exactly the money we need to save the inn. TODAY IS THE DEADLINE!

Famous, bitter, rude celebrity chef who vowed never to enter a kitchen again reluctantly agrees to coach hopeless small town girl in cheffing so she can win competition, to save the inn. Step 3: romance!

The entire set is red on red on red on red. Couches, clothes, decor, mugs, just so you don’t forget it’s Christmas (even though the entire plot has nothing to do with Christmas). The music is all Christmas music. Everyone wears Christmas aprons, and Christmas pins on their lapels. DON’T FORGET, IT’S CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! At the finale competition, they announce the surprise cooking theme. Out comes SANTA to announce the theme is “FAMILY CHRISTMAS!” What a shocking turn of events. Incidentally, no one really cooks anything Christmas-y.

Will a movie poster with the two main characters snuggling, under the title with the word “Romance” in it, produced by Harlequin novels/movies, end up with a happy ending? Tune in to fund out!

#HolidayMovieMusings

I loves me some sweet gay couples in these movies, and this one delivers, at least in side characters.

Our main character is a star of a popular TV show, returning to his family home for their traditional (and final?) Christmas House celebration. They decorate like the Dickens (get it?! I made a funny!), and are known around the town as the place to be for the holidays to see lights, decor, and displays inside and out. But this year, Mom and Dad reveal they are selling their house, like…super soon. And this is the last Christmas House, forever!

Other storylines: The brother and his husband reveal they are trying to adopt. Main character reconnects with this best friend and never-was love interest from his childhood. There is magic (literally, with Chris Gaultier of Eureka fame playing a local magic shop owner) and heartache and family and joy. Can’t say I was riveted, but I was entertained. 

Oh and while I expected the Christmas House to be dressed up excessively, I was not expected for a completely different house to have every surface decorated, including FOUR Christmas trees (that I counted in the background). Who casually decorates their personal home with this intensity? Intervention time.

And I just learned that there is a Christmas House 2 that came out in 2021; and Chris Gaultier is in that, as well as a movie called Three Wise Men and a Baby which I now have to go find and watch as well, naturally.

#Hulu #HallmarkMovies

#HolidayMovieMusings

Falling For Christmas: AKA Overboard for Christmas, but without the moral complication of purposefully hiding the amnesiac and pressing them into laboring for you against their will.

The opening of the movie did its job. Man, I was cringing at Lohan’s character and everything she said and did. Good job making us unsympathetic to that character. But later, I was reminded all the talent Lohan still has for being gentle, funny, and charming. So yeah, it’s hard not to gawk at her plastic surgery at times, but when they soften her image and makeup, and let her play someone “real”, I was drawn right in.

Chord Overstreet (Glee) did a fine job as well. Jack Wagner continues to look like he has magically slowed aging, and fun to see Lohan’s sister Ali play a role as well.

Side comment: well played having Lindsay sing along to Jingle Bell Rock. #meangirls

#HolidayMovieMusings

Holiday Date, another Hallmark movie based on a woman who can’t bear to face her family without a man on her arm. I mean, HOW EMBARRASSING!

 Holiday Movie Musings begin!!

I'm starting one week early because frankly there are so many new free available holiday movies this year. I have work ahead of me.

The Christmas Train is first, with Dermot Mulroney, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Joan Cusack, and Danny Glover. This is an all-star lineup by Hallmark movie standards!

Live comments:

2017 and it shows kids sledding on the Capitol lawn in the opening credits. It's already so so old.

He is just now getting on a cross country train for a trip to California. Did no one tell him this week take FOREVER?! (Okay, three days, but his girlfriend thought he was flying, so that’s LIKE forever.)

This guy is quite the Chatty Cathy. He’s met, like, everyone on the train in the first 2 hours. I know he’s sniffing for a story, but this train seems like it is chock full of friendly extroverts. What a nightmare.

These are the fanciest train cars. Wowsa, so much room! And the conductor lady is so attentive!

Wait, are people really standing around watching at chess match in the bar car and applauding moves? No that couldn't possibly be a thing they decided random people do on trains.

That ending. Wow. His California girlfriend is the most understanding and helpful lady ever, apparently. What an alarmingly expertly executed plan by Danny Glover’s character.

Yeah, I recommend it. It’s cute enough for one watch.

#holidaymoviemusings