It’s funny when you watch a Hallmark movie and you return to a place that you know from other Hallmark movies, it feels like coming home. Even if it’s a place that doesn’t have the same people, it still feels like it’s coming home.
And sometimes you wish that you didn’t go back, because it’s too much of the same.
Garland, Alaska is a place that I didn’t think that I would want to go back to. The original trip to Garland, was with Candace Cameron Bure. We return this time with Jodi Sweetin, which is kinda weird and kinda ironic. But for some reason, it fits.
In the movie, “Real estate exec, Erika, travels to Alaska during Christmastime to acquire a bed and breakfast, only to discover that it’s owned by her ex. While there, she finds herself falling in love with the town and quite possibly him.”
Erika is a person driven by wanting to climb the corporate ladder and get a VP title. She’s chasing her dreams – or the dreams that she thought that she wanted and needed.
But her love of Christmas is shining through. Her boss doesn’t want that though, she wants someone who puts the work first.
And so Erika does just that. She agrees to go to Alaska, in order to try and buy an Inn. The only thing is that Inn is owned by her ex, the man that she loved and left her to go back to Garland.
Andy, oh how I have missed Andy. Andy Holliday was the man who could do it all in the 2014 film, Christmas Under Wraps. He was like a slice of heaven – always patient, dedicated to his family, and dedicated to Garland. He was the town handyman and has now found his dream in running the town inn.
The thing is, if you watched Christmas Under Wraps, you know that in Garland, the Hollidays run the local shipping and receiving. If you’re in Garland, you know the secrets that the Hollidays keep are big. Though we’re never sure of what exactly it is – it seems as the Andy’s Dad is Santa Claus.
Now Andy’s Dad has invested in his dream but the inn isn’t turning a profit. Garland may be magical, but it doesn’t mean that everyone wants to go there. But Erika’s boss thinks that Inn can mean the start of a hotel empire. She’s pushing Erika to seal the deal, but Erika just can’t bring herself to do it.
It’s a crazy thing when you love someone, how you hold onto that love in some form. Sometimes it’s a strong holding on, sometimes it is a letting go. For Andy and Erika, it wasn’t a bad ending, but it wasn’t something that either wanted. They just had to find a way to live their lives and find a way to trust that everything happened for a reason.
Sometimes it’s just not the right time to be in each others lives. And sometimes fate brings you back to where you should be and where you need to be.
Erika and Andy were awkward around each other at first. Which no one can hate on, because things are awkward when you come back to being face to face with someone that you left behind. The thing is over time, they find a way to work together to both figure out what they want and find their dreams.
But the truth is that it just feels like we were going through the motions.
We knew that Andy would want to sell, but his father, Mr. Holliday, would come to want his son to follow his dreams. He would find someone else to take over the family business. Everything felt more predictable than normal.
The thing about Cozy Christmas Inn is that it’s a cute movie. It’s an adorable love story. BUT, the thing is that it felt like the same story that we saw in Christmas Under Wraps, just the leading cast had different jobs. It felt just mediocre at best.
The original movie made me feel like Christmas was here and the magic of Garland was something that was beautiful and really spread cheer. But here, in this movie, it wasn’t there. And that saddened me and took me out of the movie and made me not want to watch.
I believe that I was able to get into it for a second, because I am a sucker for love. I love finding love. I love all love. The reality is that can’t carry a movie, especially a Christmas one.
There is always one movie that lets me down each year and Cozy Christmas Inn, did just that. Not because of the story, because it was up lifting. It’s just the part where I didn’t feel that the Christmas cheer that I have felt before.
And I hope that I am able to find that in the next Countdown to Christmas movie. I just didn’t feel it here.
