Some people wait for Mariah Carey to signify the start of the Christmas season, but for us – it’s Countdown to Christmas. Countdown to Christmas signifies the start of joy, change, and just feeling a lot of love.
Tonight, Countdown to Christmas started with such a perfectly cute movie, Twas the Date Before Christmas. Starring Robert Buckley and Amy Groening, the movie was a mix of competitiveness, holiday cheer, and the meaning of love. It wasn’t too heavy, but instead, felt like a perfect balance of finding the meaning of Christmas and the meaning of who you are meant to be.
Yes, yes – fully aware that sounds deep. And hey, everything depends on how you take it.
What we do know is that we learned a lot about the joy of Christmas and tradition from this movie.
Let’s break it down.
DESPERATION
Jessie is dating and she’s finding all of the worst men to date (it seems). It’s as if she’s picking up the worst men she can find – ones that are self-absorbed, technology addicted, or you know that hate Christmas.
And who hates Christmas? Well, me, but that’s a different story.
Though we don’t know at the beginning what it is that makes Jessie not want to date, you just know it is there. You can speculate, as I did. I assumed that it was because she was going through a breakup.
There were clues that something was happening to her. Her sister-in-law made a few comments and then her Mom wanted to change all of the Christmas traditions that the family has, in order to show her that things can change and it can be okay. For Jessie though, she doesn’t want change right now, she’s had enough change.
While I won’t ever think that people telling someone that they need to change or to date or anything like that is okay – I feel like to a certain point I have to be nicer about it because it’s Jessie’s Mom trying to deliver to her that she has to accept that things change.
And while I don’t advocate lying – I do understand why it is that Jessie felt a certain desperation at that point and told her Mom that she was bringing someone to Christmas Eve. It was a last-ditch effort to keep things the same. Desperation will make you do a lot of things that you normally wouldn’t do.
More: See The Entire Countdown to Christmas Schedule Here
DATING APPS
Even typing the word dating apps makes me want to cry. The hives and anxiety of dating apps. Nope, can’t go there.
But for some reason – Twas the Date Before Christmas made them seem a lot of fun and full of possibilities.
Brian owns a development firm that buys run-down buildings and reinvigorates them into low-income housing. I have to admit that I was impressed with the idea and the way that Brian’s mind worked. I also felt bad for him, because he didn’t feel that his ideas were something that he could do.
I think that some of us want to be like our parents and honor them by doing things the way that they would have done things. Brian thinks that also, but I also think that it’s because he’s never been presented with someone telling him that it’s okay to do so. When someone we love passes, we are broken and for Brian, he’s not even realized what he is feeling.
Because he’s a go-with-the-flow type and having partners or a family doesn’t come to the front of his mind.
I think that it’s something that a lot of us can relate to.
But, when he’s at his friend’s house, they are going to tell him like it is. I loved them asking about him being okay for the holidays by himself and then asking to see his dating app to find him someone to date.
No chance in h-e-l-l I would let my friends on my dating app, but his friend does really well. The first person that she picks is Jessie. It’s the only person he needs.
CHRISTMAS EVE BLIND DATE
Jessie knows that she lied to her Mom about having a date and she’s going to need to come up with one. She decides to change her dating profile to say that the person needs to be willing to go home with her and spend all day Christmas Eve with her family.
And that works for Brian.
Look, I have loved Robert Buckley as an actor since One Tree Hill, and seeing him on screen always reminds me of why. He doesn’t overcomplicate the characters he takes on, he just makes them relatable. His facial expression makes you feel like he’s talking straight to you. His tone is soft and inviting and makes you feel invited into his character’s life.
Brian is no different. But – Brian is hard for me to understand because he’s gungho for anything with Christmas. He’s never experienced the big hoopla of a family Christmas. He doesn’t think twice about going with her.
When Brian and Jessie get to her family home, they have fun, but quickly learn that there are things that they should have discussed in order to pull this off. Starting with the fact that this is a blind date and no one knows.
CHRISTMAS OLYMPICS
I love it when Christmas traditions aren’t anything that I would expect. Cook a turkey, trim a tree, wrap a gift, and so on and so forth. But the Christmas Olympics wasn’t something that I ever thought of. But oh were they so much fun.
And it got me thinking about how different this movie is. How few phrases, thoughts, and actions in this movie are different than what I have grown to expect from Hallmark. Christmas Olympics and the things that they do in them were genuinely fun. The entire family had you invested, and you couldn’t help but be a little afraid of some of the elders.
But afraid or not, you still couldn’t wait for every event and every winner.
Things became really complicated though when Brian found out that Jessie’s sister-in-law was a tenant that his company was about to evict from a property that his company just bought. She’s got a candle company and she doesn’t want to get rid of it, because it is a community and she thinks that it would be harder for others than it would be for her.
Brian tried to drop little hints to her about going to online retail, finding a new space, and more – but that was a lot for me. Why? Because it felt icky. I do think that he had the best of intentions because he’s starting to like Jessie and he wants to do whatever he can to avoid that eviction notice being sent out.
All of this is in the middle of the Christmas Olympics, where he’s trying to have a good time, but his heart is heavy.
WHY NOT TELL THE TRUTH
People always make me laugh when they say that the truth shall set you free. It’s not that I don’t believe that is partially true, because it is. But there is a time and space for it, even though we all know that it always comes out.
The truth that is.
Everyone has things that they want to hide and I don’t think it’s necessarily fair for people to expect anyone to tell things that are on their own time versus the person having to admit to whatever it is.
When Jessie admits to Brian who Shawn is – her ex-fiance who passed away, I broke. I broke down crying because I understood why she was fighting so hard for things to remain the same. It was going to be her first Christmas without the person that she loved and wanted to spend the rest of her life with. It’s not that she’s keeping it from Brian, because I would argue that it’s really not his business.
But what Brian is trying to hide from her is really wrong.
Brian is trying to make sure that the eviction never gets sent out and I respect that. But he can’t stop the fact that it does. He also can’t stop the fact Jessie puts two and two together and realizes it’s Brian’s company that is evicting her sister-in-law. I get that he didn’t want to say anything and possibly ruin anything, but starting things out on a lie is worse.
When the truth comes out, it is worse. It is worse, even though Jessie and her family are so chill that they can work through it. But Brian doesn’t want to just work through it he wants to help them.
THEY’VE MADE A DIFFERENCE TO ME
I am not sure what I think about feelings and how long it takes to develop feelings. I think that to a certain point – when you know, you know. For Jessie, she’s realized that part of what scares her is moving on because it feels so final. But she’s also admitting that she didn’t expect to develop feelings for Brian so quickly.
If there is one thing I have learned in life it’s that no one can control emotions – when you get them, how you hang onto them, when you let them go. Brian has already admitted that he has feelings for Jessie and wants to get to know her better.
But Brian is gone. He left after the truth came out, even though they said he could stay. But how awkward would that have been? It’s just you can then tell that it hurt him to go, because he really, really cares.
Brian is going to figure out everything that he needs to do to save the candle shop and appreciate his father’s legacy. What I loved is that Brian and Jessie were both confronting their feelings in different ways, but both are valid. I liked though that we got to see from different eyes and both sets of eyes just needed to communicate openly.
When Brian does figure it out – I truly believe that for him it was about doing the right thing and not about getting the girl.
OTHER THOUGHTS
Why I think that this movie was the perfect movie to open Countdown to Christmas with was that it was so lighthearted and fun, it was a good way to ease us all into the Christmas spirit. It is only October, so you know, we definitely need to ease in. It just was something that was unique and special. H***, we may even join a dating app.
