Hallmark
Rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄
Description: Having recently relocated, Julie (Fish) is setting up her new town using pieces she inherited from her late grandmother, including a beautiful dining room table she plans to use on Christmas Eve when she hosts dinner for the first time. Though she doesn’t have her guest list set just yet Julie takes inspiration from her grandmother and has faith that her holiday table for eight will be filled. Julie’s warm, friendly nature leads her to quickly become part of the community and make friends, including her neighbor Mark (Foy) and his young daughter Vanessa (Morgan). Mark suggests that he and his family could join her, making Julie’s dream of dinner for eight come true. But when bad weather keeps them from making the trip it looks like it will be a silent night with just the three of them unless a small Christmas miracle – or series of miracles – fills her holiday table. Starring Rhiannon Fish, Jake Foy and Mila Morgan.
Overall Review: Well, we’ve got ourselves a contender. Who’s Coming for Christmas has officially entered the conversation for my Santa Award for best Christmas movie of the season. And the funny thing is, about a third of the way through, I was pretty convinced this was going to be a three-tree movie.
Why? The decorations. Oh, the decorations. And the snow. They most assuredly did not hire the “good snow guy” for this one.
Hallmark has established a pretty high standard for making every square inch of a movie look like Christmas threw up on it, and this one falls noticeably short. The decorations looked cheap and haphazardly thrown in. I was mentally deducting trees and preparing myself for a perfectly average Christmas movie.
But then the movie kept going. And it kept winning me over. The script was smart and engaging and the acting was fantastic. Every time I thought I’d settled on what I thought of the movie, it gave me another reason to like it more.
Look, I’ve watched enough Christmas movies to know where most of them are going. We all have. The destination is rarely the surprise. What separates a great Christmas movie from an average one is how it gets us there, and Who’s Coming for Christmas absolutely nails the journey.
And can we talk about Rhiannon Fish? She’s an incredible actress. There are performers who are pleasant to watch in these movies, and then there are performers who make you believe every moment they’re on screen. Fish belongs firmly in that second category, and this movie is another reminder of why. By the time the credits rolled, I’d completely abandoned my earlier three-tree assessment. The decorations were still below Hallmark’s usual standard, but I didn’t care anymore. The writing, performances, and storytelling had earned every single tree.
I’m putting Who’s Coming for Christmas in the same category as My Norwegian Holiday from 2023: Hallmark movies that I think everyone should watch, whether they’re devoted Christmas movie fans or not.
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