Miracles Of Christmas Movie Review: A Season For Family

Sometimes when it comes to fate, you think that you can out run it. You think that you can control it. But if we’re being honest, when it comes to fate and if you mix it with grief, what you are left with is a lot of indecision and pain. And sometimes pain is too much.

Grief is a strong conduit to hang on. Grief is sometimes all consuming and sometimes it takes over to the point that if leaves you existing.

A Season For Family may have been one of those movies that I would be able to argue that it didn’t need to be a Christmas movie, but the reality is that it did. There was a purpose to the feelings, the season, and the wishes.

And overall this movie reminds one that grief is a big thing and it can be all consuming. But, when it comes to grief, moving forward doesn’t mean that you will dishonor a memory. Sometimes it means giving new life to the promises and the memories made.

WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Maddy (Farber) is a successful manager at a Five Star Hotel and single mother to adopted son, Wesley, (Benjamin Jacobson, A Fabled Holiday) whose only wish for Christmas is to meet his brother, who was adopted into another family. Maddy immediately goes to work in contacting the adoption agency for help – When Paul (Penny), a widower and single father to Cody, (Azriel Dalman, We Need a Little Christmas) who owns a ski shop in Park City, Utah, receives a call from the adoption agency he realizes he is at an emotion crossroads. Feeling overwhelmed, Paul initially turns down the adoption agency’s request as he hasn’t told his son that he is adopted and doesn’t feel this is the right time. As fate would have it, Maddy and Wesley go to visit her parents, Frances, (Laura Soltis, The Wedding Contract) and Charles’, (Cameron Bancroft, Coyote Creek Christmas) home in Park City, Utah, where they find themselves in Paul’s store. The next day, when Wesley and Cody meet in ski school, an incredible bond is forged between the two, and as that new-found friendship grows, so does the spark between their parents. When Paul realizes that Cody’s best friend is his brother, he immediately pulls back, until Jeremy, (Edward Ruttle, The Spencer Sisters) his best friend, helps him realize he cannot deny his son his own family – potentially making two broken families whole again.

WHAT IT’S GIVING: Grief, but like in a positive way.

STANDOUT PERFORMANCE: Azriel Dalman and Benjamin Jacobson. They really were adorbs and gave it their all

ALL MY GRINCHISH THOUGHTS: Now, I love Brendan Penny and him as a Dad is a just hot. As you get older, you grow to appreciate the men in the world that can be a Dad and act like one. I know, I know… it’s not something I should say, but here we are.

Paul is grieving. His wife died two years prior and he’s barely holding himself together. Their ski shop is barely hanging on. He’s doing his best to be a great father, but feels he’s falling short. His son is isolated and not making friends. His sister and his best friend are dating, but keeping it a secret.

And he gets a call from the person who helped him with his sons adoption and someone is looking for them. He refuses to let them meet – thinking it is the birth mother.

Maddy has returned home for the holidays with her son, Wesley. In school Wesley was given the assignment of a family tree. This seems like an innocent project, but it’s not. Personally, if I had kids, I would have a talk with their teacher, because families now a days – they are complex. For Wesley, this assignment led Maddy to tracking down his birth family (well a second cousin) and finding out that her son has a biological brother.

That call that Paul got – turns out it was Maddy looking for him. Her son and Cody are brothers. It’s ironic because at ski school – Cody and Wesley met and became instant friends. The two don’t know that they are brothers, but they quickly become the best of friends.

Paul is intent on keeping it from Cody when he finds out. He’s intent on keeping it because he promised his wife before she passed that he wouldn’t let Cody know he was adopted until he was at least ten.

Maddy and Paul are growing closer, even though they are trying not to. Maddy wants the boys to know the truth. Paul wants to keep this secret. But as the two boys grow closer, it feels as though it’s one lie after another.

Wesley’s only wish for Christmas was to find his brother. It was one of those things that you saw unfold on the screen and you couldn’t help but feel for Maddy and Wesley. How heartbreaking it must be to watch your child feel so many complex things and you can’t help them with the truth. Even when you know the truth and so essentially every interaction with them is a lie.

Paul was trying to search for a way to stay a float and keep his family together. What he doesn’t realize is that moving on and moving forward doesn’t mean that he’s disrespecting the past. I also do think that as he finds his way forward and allows himself to see that giving Cody the truth, doesn’t mean that he’s a bad father. It doesn’t mean that he was a bad husband. What it means is the opposite.

He’s a good one.

Honoring the past is a thing. It’s a beautiful thing. But sometimes honoring it means moving forward. Paul allowing himself to change his promise to his wife, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love her. But she’d want him to move forward. She’d want him to love again.

She’d want him not to give up.

And the whole this being important at Christmas – well – giving Wesley his Christmas wish is what made the story feel natural and less impulsive. I think that a lot of the time at Christmas, we all spend so much time thinking that we have to be a certain way. We have to grow and be this person that our families want us to be. We start to think about everything in life and we start to reexamine what everything means.