When your birthday is in December, it’s hard enough. Growing up, my best friends birthday was Christmas Eve, and I alway felt bad for her. I did whatever I could to make her birthday stand out – but as a kid there isn’t much you can do. She hated them being the same day and though she tried to cover it up, it stuck with me.
As we get older, it’s not that birthdays become less important, it’s just that we learn how to suppress our feelings about them. Other things take precedent, and sometimes we put ourselves on the back burner.
But here’s the thing – putting ourselves on the back burner is not always healthy and it’s sometimes the worst thing that we can do for ourselves. Sometimes, what we need is someone to remind us how important we are, how loved we are, and exactly what matters.
Countdown to Christmas has delivered some great movies this holiday season, but we have to admit that we never expected Emily Osment and Casey Deidrick together. But it is everything that we didn’t know that we needed.
In the movie, “Leah’s (Osment) 30th birthday is Christmas Eve but this milestone takes a back seat when her future sister-in-law claims Christmas Eve for her wedding and asks Leah to be one of the many bridesmaids. But the return of Leah’s childhood crush Drew (Deidrick) may be exactly what she needs to push her to the forefront of the overlapping festivities and determine a new direction in her life.”
And this movie is everything that we needed. Well that I needed.
It’s a weird thing when you’re watching a movie with actors that you can remember being so much younger and you think, am I old? Or are we all just getting older and seeing things in a different light?
While I am used to the usual Hallmark crowd of actors, one thing that drew me to this movie was Emily Osment and Casey Deidrick. Two people that are new to this channels movies, but draw a new crowd in.
And it was a smart move.
When you’re watching a Hallmark Movie, you know that it’s a formula, but most movies are. The thing about seeing new actors in it, you feel like you are seeing something new. Something unique.
And something that you can fall in love with all over again.
Leah is all of us. Well, she is most of us. She wants to make everyone happy, to the point that she puts herself second. She has big dreams, but she exists through her life instead of living it.
Because living it is scary.
Living it means that something bad could happen.
Since she was a little girl, she wanted nothing more than to travel. But the first time that she tried, she got a call that her father had a heart attack and she spent the next 24 hours trying to get home, not knowing if he was okay. She’s felt like she’d needed to be close to home since then.
It’s her 30th birthday on Christmas Eve, and her brother has planned his wedding on that day. Leah’s decided that is enough and her birthday doesn’t matter, even though 30 has always been a milestone to her.
With the wedding, her brother returns to town with his very Type A bride, and his best friend returns to town too. Drew, has been traveling around South America, teaching english. From the moment that Leah and Drew see each other, you just know – they have something special.
The way that they look at each other, the way that they make your body tense up just watching them and you let out a big sigh when they have their moments, when he takes care of her, when he wants to protect her (even though she doesn’t see it).
Drew is Leah’s brothers best friend. But you can tell that she’s important to him. He remembers her birthday and doesn’t want her to not celebrate it. He knows that she’s waited her whole life for this birthday and it’s been important to her. He makes the choice that she is going to be celebrated.
But he celebrates her the way that she would want to be celebrated. Things that he knows that she enjoys. Decorating trees, carriage rides – just really spending time with her. Leah is all about the moments. The moments where things are meant to matter.
Moments are what she defines her life by.
Drew tries everything that he can to hide his feelings, but you can just see the look in his eyes. You see the way that he moves in sync with her, the way that he looks at her as though she makes him remember that he is valuable and loved.
Because these two have loved each other since childhood. Both have never acted on it because they want to protect Paul – Leah’s brother. But sometimes protecting someone else’s heart is at the expense of your own.
Yes, I know in this story – there is the whole storyline of Paul and his impending wedding but like no offense to Paul, but no one cares about that storyline. Like okay, we’ve all been pissed at you since the beginning because you’re having your wedding on your sisters 30th birthday.
Sometimes secondary storylines are meant to be enticing but Casey and Emily command the screen when they are together. Their characters are who you care about in this storyline. They are the people that you want to see together.
You want them to love each other. You want them together.
Hell, you’re watching everything else happen, but you’re like get back to Leah and Drew. Get back to them figuring everything out.
You watch this movie and you want a guy like Drew. You want someone to love you and bring out the best parts of you. You want someone to challenge you. You want someone to know you better than you know yourself.
Drew and Leah finding their way to each other, to realizing that it’s always been each other – I broke down in tears.
And then when she’s like the only thing I care about is that you see me..
Yup, I was a goner.
This is a super cute, fun, romantic movie where you are so invested at the end you walk away wanting to call up your brothers best friend and asking if he would do romantic shit for you.
