Always and Forever Christmas
Admittedly I had to speed re-watch this one as I watched it back in April, in my attempt to watch Christmas Movies in spring, but then a pandemic gripped the world by the throat and for some reason watching Christmas Movies took a back seat back then. Not that anything has improved, even slightly, as far as that's concerned but life goes on I imagine. I hope.
Meet Lucy (Lexi Lawson), who lives in California and works for the Internet. Lucy's gramps recently passed and left her his Vermont based Christmas store, Forever Christmas. He probably should've left it to his daughter, Lucy's mom, but he did not which seemed like a dick move to me. I can almost guarantee you that mom wouldn't have put a deal in place to sell this store to an Athleisurware company of all things. Both Lucy's mom and dad work in this store but they are being forcibly retired by Lucy. They claim it's 'voluntary'. She even dispatched them to Florida for a forced vacation. Randall (Cardi Wong) also works in this store and I don't know where the heck this kid is going to find work in tiny town Vermont, but Lucy is still setup as NOT being the villain of this piece.
So Lucy gets to town, sets herself up at the apartment above the store when BAM a creepy old lady suddenly appears behind her holding cookies and cocoa. Obviously Lucy is a little concerned where this old lady came from and she asked her how she got a key to this apartment. This creepy old lady, who calls herself Carol (Beth Broderick) is a master of making you answer your own questions, that way I assume she won't be lying. Anyway, Lucy assumes Carol is a seasonal worker, because I guess Randall can't handle the mass traffic at this Christmas store. Carol is actually Mrs. Santa, we are led to believe, as her husband is really busy this time of year, at their import / export business, at the small town 'up north' where they live. Carol also has the ability to make things appear out of thin air, say like when she walked by the broken fireplace in Lucy's apartment and just like that... fire. Do you know who else can make fire appear out of nowhere? Yes, Satan. That's who.
Anyway, unlike California, Vermont doesn't have the Internet, forcing Lucy to go across the street to the diner to use the Internet where she meets Scott the Diner Owner (Mark Ghanime). Scott is sad that Lucy is closing the Christmas Store, but he sure is glad Lucy walked in his diner because single women are hard to come by in Vermont. I don't know if you knew that. Meanwhile, Carol is at the store doing what magical people tend to do in these movies, which is get all up in folks business. She tries to get Lucy not to sell the store by activating Lucy's latent super power of knowing exactly what gift to get people, she repeatedly forces Scott and Lucy into situations where they have to be with one another, and she constantly gets in the face of every single customer that walks into the store.
But guess what? Carol's obtrusiveness works! Lucy and Scott fall in love... I guess... I mean they say the words to each other and all. We believed Scott because Mark Ghanime does a great job of acting like a lovesick puppy, where Lucy seemed indifferent about the whole love thing. The store is saved, because the Athleisure wear guy got an actual puppy, it's complicated, and as I imagined Lucy's parents, who found a way to hitchhike back home where VERY happy that she's not selling so they aren't living in the street. And Carol disappears into thin air, which I'm pretty sure is something only Satan would do. Merry Christmas!
What does Always and Forever Christmas bring to the table that's unique or special to the Romantic Christmas movie game? Nothing. Except maybe the pudding toss which I've never seen, possibly it doesn't actually exist. You have a row of people standing at a table with pudding, with their partner about 12 feet away holding a basket, and then the people with the pudding throw the pudding at their partner in an attempt to get the pudding in the basket. What the hell kind of game is that? I can't imagine people in olden times throwing pudding at each other, because everybody in olden times was poor, I've seen the pictures, and throwing pudding at one another would be extremely wasteful I think.
Now just because Always and Forever Christmas doesn't do anything special doesn't mean it's a bad Romantic Holiday movie, and while Carol actually being a herald of Satan would've been special, I actually just made that up. In fact this movie does pretty much everything you would expect from these movies and does it competently. Since most of the action takes place in a Christmas Store, it's Christmassy AF, Carol is constantly presenting fresh baked cookies and cocoa, whether you want it or not, there's mistletoe, a Christmas Ball, lots of snow, lot's of background Christmas music, magic, Christmas caroling, wise old people, a cute kid sighting who I think was an orphan, and a pudding toss. Which isn't a thing. Lexi Lawson is cute and charming, and Mark Ghanime is handsome with piercing green eyes. I actually didn't notice his eyes, to be honest, but pulled it from his IMDB bio.
One unique thing about this movie is that our heroine did NOT quit her sweet gig working for the Internet in California to be with a man and run a very seasonal Christmas store in Vermont. Instead Scott packed up and moved to California with her and opened an Avocado Toast bistro or something. That's pretty forward thinking for one of these movies actually. And Randall got to keep his job.
Always and Forever Christmas is run of the mill, no doubt, but still a very vomit worthy entry into the genre.
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