the audience applauded

Brilliant and touching

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This was the perfect Hallmark movie! Some can get too cheesy but this one was just right. This one really captured the feeling of Christmas. Plus, it had the right humor that made it super fun to watch.

I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 400 ( C H R I S T M A S ) MOVIES AND SPECIALS.PLEASE BEWARE OF SOME REVIEWERS THAT ONLY HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW. WHEN ITS A POSITIVE THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE PRODUCTION. NOW I HAVE NO AGENDA! I REVIEW MOVIES & SPECIALS AS A WAY TO KEEP TRACK OF WHAT I HAVE SEEN! I HAVE DISCOVERED MANY GEMS IN MY QUEST TO SEE AS MANY " C H R I S T M A S " MOVIES AS I CAN. In this film Eric Randall (Jesse Metcalfe), a famous author who writes about how to stay a bachelor is forced to look after his niece and nephew over the holidays and, with the help of his Christmas-loving neighbor, April Stewart (Fiona Gubelmann), he learns to find love and the Christmas spirit. We also see that doesn't really like Chirstmas but in general he is not a jerk. He is just a guy who doesn't want to fall in love againWhen he meets his neighbor she is his polar opposite . She loves and trying to get her neighbor to get into the spirit of the holidays. This film is not great. It is however very entertaining.

At the beginning Eric was annoyed at April because her violin students distracted him from his writing. He turns up his music which in turn annoys her. When the street is shown, the houses are not connected, and later Eric says to somebody that April lives 2 houses down from him. Somebody dropped the ball there! As a reviewer early said, watching the violin playing was cringeworthy. I think my dog could have done a better job than the actress. The story was typical light romance from Hallmark and I enjoyed it.

This would have been an OK enough Hallmark type of movie and I do like Jesse Metcalfe but Fiona is such a sloppy and LAZY actress. Did she honestly think -- and did the director and everybody else -- that she could just get away with "playing" the violin that way? She seemed to not even have bothered to get even one lesson about playing the violin, much less even just holding the bow. And for a story that also centers on her being an accomplished violinist who messes up her auditions because of nerves and who, at the end, is accepted to work in an orchestra for she is supposed to be that good if her nerves just did not get in her way -- she just absolutely ruined the effect and the storyline. Watching her "play" the violin is an absolute nightmare and she positively just thrashed all her scenes with the violin and just totally destroyed all believability -- the gall of the actress and the director and producers if they thought that the audience will accept or not notice this. It really and truly angers me that they think so little of the viewers that they feel they can get away with this!