Christmas on Wheels

 Christmas on Wheels (2020) - Lifetime

So Ashley, as played by the blindingly beautiful Tiya Sircar, is some kind of antique collector maybe?  I’m not sure.  Anyway, she’s at an auction and has her eye on a Christmas bell, which we she will be outbid on by the jerky lawyer Duncan (Michael Xavier).  Doesn’t matter because eventually they will fall in love and she’s gonna get that bell back without spending a dime.  Spoiler alert.

Ashley then has received word that her uncle Tony (Randy Thomas) has cracked his ankle and lady he’s shacking with could use some help around the house.  Ashley has been avoiding small town snowyville ever since her mom died a few years back, but waddayagonnado?  Family.

Upon arriving at her uncle home, Ashely is in for a couple of surprises.  One would be Duncan the jerky lawyer is there, because he’s her uncle’s lawyer.  What a coincidence.  Second is that her uncle has sold her mom’s classic Cadillac.  I mean he straight up asked her, back in the day, if she wanted it and she said no, but she’s still a little upset.   The thing that’s special about this drop top Caddy is that her mom used it to give gifts to the less fortunate every Christmas, and while Ashley understands she won’t get the car back, she would like to see it one last time for old time’s sake.  Duncan, being a dude who specializes in finding stuff, I think, promises to help, so these two kids travel up and down the freeway looking for a red Caddy.  Note that Duncan insisted they take his car because Ashley drives a Mini and there’s nothing Mini about Duncan.  Homeboy is like 5’9” and might weigh 170.  He would fit comfortably in the back seat of that car just fine.

Eventually they find the car, and Ashley is even gifted this car though it won’t start and could use a some TLC, which Ashley and Duncan give it, car cleaning montage style, but is still won’t start… until Duncan gets in.  The car is magic.  Or… possessed by the Devil.  Your choice. But since we’ve found the car, what is the rest of this movie about?  Restoring Christmas spirit to Snowyville, re-starting mom’s Christmas Caddy Gift Drop and reminding Ashley about what’s important. That being love.  At Christmas.

So one of the things I point that usually makes or breaks these Christmas Romance movies, recognizing most everything else is generally paint by numbers, is the chemistry between our two leads.  It’s not that Tiya Sircar and Michael Xavier don’t have chemistry together, they actually seem to get along fine… as friends.  I did mention earlier that in my opinion Tiya Sircar is of one the loveliest women on God’s Green Earth, and Michael Xavier is plenty handsome and charming, and they spent a lot of time together in this movie saying words back and forth to each other, but I just wasn’t feeling the romance!  I can see them having a beer, but I just can’t see them doing the other stuff.   And despite Ashley’s impassioned love speech at the end, they didn’t even kiss!  They just danced in the snow, like friends would do.  I mean I wouldn’t dance in the snow with any of my friends, but we’re weird like that.  

Otherwise most of the prerequisite boxes were checked.  Cookie baking, tree shopping and decorating, cocoa drinking, lots of canned Christmas music playing, I vaguely remember seeing some mistletoe but I don’t recall any snowball fights or snowman building.  Which might’ve been another problem with this little Holiday Romance movie, in that was also sort of inert.  Obviously most of these movies tend to blend together, but I literally saw it just yesterday and memories of it are already fading fast.  Unfortunately Tiya Sircar being super good looking can only carry a movie so far it turns out.