Christmas in Evergreen
Well, this is the one. The prototype. There have been many Hallmarky holiday movies made before Christmas in Evergreen, and there will be many more after, including multiple Evergreen sequels, but if anyone ever asks you, 'what are these movies, you insist on watching, actually like?', just point them towards this one. This movie is the pure representation of everything that's possible, good and bad and in-between, in a Hallmarky Romantic Holiday movie.
Our film opens with a narrator. It's Santa Claus. He's filling us in on a magic snow globe in the town of Evergreen Vermont, where you make a wish, and if it's what your heart wants, your wish will come true. Transition to Allie the vet (Ashley Williams) who is trying to get out of town and catch a plane to D.C. to start her new career and hopefully fire things back up with her distanced boyfriend Spencer (Marcus Rosner). If you're watching this movie along with this uninitiated individual, you can do a running commentary so they won't be in the dark, like explaining the presence of magic or letting them know that Spencer will not have a woman by the end of the movie. Things like that.
Driving down the freeway, towards the same airport Allie is trying to get to, is Doctor Ryan (Teddy Sears) and his young daughter Zoe (Jaeda Lily Miller) attempting to get to Florida for a Holiday cruise. Zoe's mom is totally dead, and you can let your viewer know that this too is very common and almost required. Dad and daughter get hungry, pull off the freeway into Evergreen to get something to eat, where they meet Allie trying to start her troublesome truck, which is also magic. Their mere presence makes the truck start, and I'm thinking love might be in the air. Then Ryan and Zoe stop to get a bite at the Christmas restaurant run by Allie's folks, which also houses the Magic Snow Globe, Zoe proceeds to make a wish, and now stuff starts to happen. Most of this stuff seems to be caused by a magical white haired bearded dude floating around town (Keith Martin Gordey) who likes to get all up in folks business.
Allie is still desperately trying to get out of town, but the harder she tries to leave the residents of Evergreen just keep pulling her back in. We should also mention there's a Christmas festival to plan for, usually handled by Allie, but this year it's being taken care of by her bestie Michelle (Holly Robinson Peete). You can also let this person know, that until recently, the best way to see a Person of Color in one of these movies was to locate the main characters best friend.
By this time Allie, Doctor Ryan and Zoe keep getting thrown together but gosh darn, they are getting along famously. It's almost like there's a mystic force making things happen which keep these three people always in each others sphere. As a result, Zoe has totally captured Allie's heart, and vice versa even though Zoe's mom has only been dead a year. Can't mourn forever I guess. I don't think they ever told us how she died... we tend to lean towards murder in these instances.
Oh yeah, Spencer. Spencer really wants to try to make things work with Allie, and while the airport is shutdown and a mudslide has closed the one road leading out of Evergreen (Magic snow globe caused these calamities by the way), my man Spencer caught a freaking helicopter just be close to his woman, although he does seem a little suspicious of the tall dude who's always in his ladies purview. As he should be. But alas Spencer, your Herculean efforts will not be enough. Imagine a person who is constantly joyful and smiles almost incessantly. This person loves everything and everybody. She loves snow flakes and animals and dirt and clouds and moonbeams and complete strangers and sugar cookies... she just doesn't love you. How would that make a person feel? I don't know, but Spencer over there does. And that dude you were suspicious of, Spencer? He's making out with your girl right now. Merry Christmas Spencer! And Santa approves of all of this!`
We kid you not, my friends, in telling you that this movie is what the Romantic Holiday movie is all about. If you love these movies and you are looking for a mate that also loves these movies, make him or her watch this movie. If they hate it, they are not for you. If they love it, they still probably aren't for you either but that's another discussion for another day. From to top to bottom, this one checks all the boxes. Our star Ashley Williams might not be as closely associated with these movies as Candace Cameron or Lacey Chabert, but she's been doing them longer, and her constant bubbliness, unyielding joy and endless positive attitude is what a Hallmarky heroine is all about. And our hero, played by Teddy Sears, couldn't be more perfectly blandsome if he tried, and as such was the perfect accessory to our heroine while never drawing the focus away from her.
Naturally everything else that we expect to see was there as well, to the point I wonder how they squeezed it all in, during the scant 82 minute run time. A Christmas festival, in peril, rescued. Cookie baking (and might I say those cookies looked fabulous), two tree purchases and two tree trimmings, hot cocoa drinking, lots of snow, snowman making, snow angel making, Christmas caroling, magic, getting a better boyfriend, ugly Christmas sweaters, puppies, a dead parent, a best friend of color, cute kids, wise old people... there's probably more but I was overloaded. No, there were no Orphan Kids but Orphan Kids are my thing, not necessarily a Hallmark things so there is nothing that's going to stand in the way of this movie achieving that altogether rare fifth vomit.
Is the movie any good you might ask? That's so neither here nor there. Yes, it is completely ridiculous nonsense but that's kind of the point. The creators of Christmas in Evergreen set out with a plan, and I can't promise that all will enjoy the fruits of how this plan turned out, but I can tell you it that this plan was executed flawlessly.
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