Christmas brings a lot of feelings out of people. It’s one of those things that you can either love it desperately or hate it desperately. But the reality is that there are always reasons for everyone to feel a certain way and it’s up to us as people to respect those reasons.
In A Big Fat Family Christmas, the Changs are all about the holiday. Everyone in the community looks forward to their annual Christmas party. It’s the biggest, most over the top Christmas party in Nob Hill. Their daughter, Liv, doesn’t want anything to do with Christmas, but her parents want all of the decorations, all of the time.
Liv doesn’t want to be associated with the Changtastic Christmas. She tells her family that she wants to spend a holiday with just them, but her Mom, well she wants her to embrace the party. They are definitely two different people.
Liv has built a life for herself as a photographer for the San Francisco Chronicle. She’s pretty comfortable in her job, loves the life that she is building and the way that she’s living. She’s able to keep her personal life personal and her private life private.
However, there is always a wrench that can be thrown in that.
Liv is at work and sees a hot guy. Now, I think we’ve all been there, where you see a hot guy and you wanna act like cool, but there is no acting cool. You’re gonna drool. Now, would we walk up and take a picture? No. There aren’t many boundaries that we set, but like, public embarrassment is something most people try to avoid.
Hot new guy, his name is Henry. He’s a new reporter on staff all the way in from Bangkok. He wanted something new and moving to San Francisco seemed to be just that. We can understand that. San Francisco is a great town with a lot of great things to do and places to see.
Henry makes Liv nervous, but in the best way. And yes, there is a best way. She wants to keep walls up, but he breaks her walls down, even though that’s not the way that it was supposed to be.
Henry is new in town and she introduced him to her brother, not thinking much about it. But she should have. Because before she knew it – he was having dinner with her brother and had an idea to pitch to their editor – all about the Changtastic Christmas party.
And on top of that Liv gets selected to work with him. She tries to sway them away from doing the party, but what she does is give in, once she’s told that it would be a cover. Her first cover.
We all know watching the movie that they will cover it, and we all knew that Henry would find out who she is. These are things that are important, but what is even more important is the road that Liv takes.
What Hallmark has excelled at this year is telling stories that aren’t focused just on romance, but are focused on relationships and growth. There is a lesson that can be learned from anything – that’s very true. While A Big Fat Family Christmas is a lot of fun and a lot of laughter, what it really shows us is that we need to listen to the things that are being said, as well as things that aren’t.
Liv doesn’t know how to embrace the party because of when she was young. She would sing at the party when she was a kid and one of the girls had recorded it and showed everyone. She was so embarrassed and hated the party because of that incident.
It’s a testament to how things that you experience as a kid stick with you. The shape a part of you. People can say just let go, but how do you let go of the things that have left an imprint on your soul – either good or bad? It’s not as easy as just saying it.
Life isn’t that easy. Even though we wish it was.
Liv had to do everything that she could to change her life, but seeing the right road and the way that it truly should be, wasn’t as simple as letting go. It was about embracing the past and learning from it – in order to make a better future.
See, what had changed her, had changed her whole family. None of them really ever understood why she was the way she was, but her coming clean and growing from it, showed them that she loved them no matter what.
Sometimes you need to grow from the past and part of growing means embracing and learning.
Liv embraced the family party – finally. Even bringing herself to the front of the camera to try and right the mistakes that she’s made, also owning up to them.
The best part – was that Liv took the stage at the party and sung again.
Do her and Henry find her way to each other? Yes. But even more important than that is that they both find more about the people that they are meant to be.
And not to mention – that was a great party… definitely a Changtastic Christmas.