Rating: 🎄🎄
Premiere Date: December 8, 2024
Description: Leah Goldberg loves Christmas from afar—trees, ornaments, eggnog, the whole package—but being Jewish, she’s usually relegated to admiring from the sidelines. When her boyfriend Graham invites her to spend the holidays with his quintessentially Connecticut Christmas-obsessed family, Leah jumps at the chance… and immediately discovers that “perfect Christmas” is code for stress, judgment, and passive-aggressive decorations.
Chemistry: Credit where it’s due: Leah and Graham had believable sparks. I bought their connection… until the holiday chaos started testing the limits of my own patience.
Plot: I was fully here for Hallmark’s annual foray into a Hannukah story, and the concept is sweet. But the execution? A constant stress test. The awkward family moments piled up faster than tinsel on a tree, making what should have been cozy holiday fun feel like a sitcom-level anxiety marathon.
Design: Mixed bag. The Hannukah scenes had warmth and charm, but the Christmas décor—supposedly over-the-top festive—looked suspiciously last-minute and bargain-bin. If perfection was the goal, someone forgot to send the elves their memo.
Overall: One word: STRESSFUL. Great chemistry, good concept, and some solid design moments weren’t enough to save this from feeling like a holiday anxiety drill. Fun? Occasionally. Watchable? Sure, once. Worth repeating? Only if you enjoy festive tension in HD.