Christmas – if we’re being honest, I am not the biggest Christmas person, but maybe it’s because I haven’t found my Christmas person. Maybe, just maybe. I guess that sometimes we all need to find our home.
Over time I have learned in life that home is a figurative word. Sometimes we think that it has to mean a building with four walls – a place that you live. But home, well it’s so much more complex than that.
Home is a place, a person, a thing. Home is what makes you feel centered. Home is a feeling.
A feeling that you can’t and shouldn’t outrun.
But in Hallmarks latest Countdown to Christmas movie The 5-Year Christmas Party, Max and Alice seem to be doing just that. Working to outrun home – which – if we’re being honest here – home for them is each other.
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THE BEGINNING
Senior year of college should be a time to celebrate. It’s a time to reflect. For Alice, it’s the time where she’s just staged a new take on A Christmas Carol. Everyone loves what she’s done (though, I have to admit, I would have just loved to have seen it) and is raving about it.
As she takes a little break, she heads to the roof, where she thinks that she’s going to get a chance to breathe. Her crush, Max, finds her out there and he tells her how great it was.
But the thing was, for Alice it felt like she was looking for a reason to be angry at Max. He’s been her crush forever and she really likes him, but him paying her compliments, what she wants to know is why. Why now?
Alice is trying so hard to put up this wall, especially when he tries to kiss her. It’s as if she wants this reason to push him away.
One thing that I have always had a hard time understanding in a lot of shows is why it is that a lot of them have the woman afraid to commit and come with excuses. I felt like in this movie both Max and Alice had a lot of reasons to back away. As I say that I also know the other side of it – that there comes a time that you’re ready for love to work out and it’s not always right away.
FIGURING OUT KISSING
Alice and Max both have big dreams and that’s part of what I love about both characters. They are similar – they love the arts. However, Max wants to be an actor and Alice wants to be in theater. Both have the want to be in the arts but it is leading them in different directions.
For Max, his journey is out in Los Angeles and for Alice it’s staying put. She wants to be at the theater that they have both studied at and run it. Max wants to be in the movies. But both are so supportive of it.
The thing is that these two have a connection, one that is undeniable. The two are both working the holidays for a catering company and enjoy it. Max’s sister owns the company and keeps getting him to work during the holidays, bringing Max and Alice together.
Each year they are forced to come to terms with their feelings each other and it’s definitely not something that is easy on either one of them. They are both career driven, but sometimes it feels as though that is an excuse to stray away from what their heart wants.
The two work out their feelings and come to terms with the fact that they do like kissing each other. They like the feelings that they bring out of each other. To be honest, it’s one of the things that I love – is the moment that they kiss for the first time and realize that they love doing just that. They are good at it. There are many times in life that you can love kissing someone and you don’t put a stop to it, because you love it.
As we watch the movie, it is the way that these two evolve that make you watch the movie, swoon, and honestly sometimes pull the covers up and giggle.
More Countdown to Christmas Reviews: This Time Each Year Review: A Lot For The Holidays
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GHOSTING
What killed me during this movie was the moments that Max and Alice both took turns ghosting each other. They both seemed to struggle at points with how to maintain a friendship when they couldn’t have a relationship.
Rather than talk about it during the year, the two instead spent all of their time ignoring calls and texts. They isolated themselves from each other – as we all do – and found themselves wondering what they did for the other one to turn away. It was sad.
The two were able to work through everything, every Christmas. The two would bring up the emotions that they felt, the anger and frustration, and they would forgive.
And so that’s part of what this movie is, a love letter to forgiveness and working through things. Finding some strength in that forgiveness and that love that doesn’t die, but just evolves. It’s a love letter to finding the peace that knowing who your person is and finding that love as a motivator, no matter the obstacle.
I’VE FALLEN
Admitting that you love someone isn’t easy. It’s actually one of the worst feelings in the world. Why? Because there is that anxiety of telling someone how you feel and the fear that they won’t feel the same. That anxiety is crippling.
Seeing Max admit to Alice that he’s fallen deeply in love with her and he wants her to come with him back to Los Angeles – I cried. I legitimately cried. I was like one of the most beautiful moments I have ever seen in a Hallmark movie. The way that Jordan Fisher, as Max, was able to convey such vulnerability and depth, it was just perfection.
The two made a plan – she was going to go with them. This was their chance. This was their moment.
But when the moment became fleeting and Alice couldn’t go – I felt like my heart was getting ripped out from my chest. I had known watching this movie that I was going to feel a lot of different things – but it was this moment I realized how deeply I was invested in these characters. I was invested in this film.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again – I think that if you aren’t invested in the characters, you won’t be invested in the story. Not every actor can make you watch a film and know that looking away isn’t an option. They pull you in, grab ahold of your heart and they don’t let go.
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I CAN’T IMAGINE A CHRISTMAS WITHOUT YOU
Dreams are coming true for them both. Max has been in this space movie and Alice’s play is premiering. Max is of course, home for the holidays and he’s trying to avoid Alice.
Fate.
Sometimes I don’t think that I am the biggest believer in fate, but it’s movies like The 5-Year Christmas Party that remind me what fate is. It’s this beautiful thing that brings everything together or it tears everything apart.
When Alice sees Max at a party – she tries to talk to him. He’s doing everything that he can to avoid her and I can appreciate that. I would avoid someone who broke my heart like the plague. But if I was him, I would also be avoiding her because he said some pretty mean things when she decided to take her dream job.
The thing about fate is that it’s going to step in when you least expect it. You will try to avoid it, but you won’t be able to. For Alice and Max, fate, tradition and love is going to win.
Without any hesitation I will say that The 5-Year Christmas Party is in our top five Countdown to Christmas movies this year. It’s a movie that has everything and gives so much holiday cheer. The way that the character growth is written and we get to embrace these characters – you can’t help but fall in love with everything about that.
Jordan Fisher and Katie Findlay are magic.
It’s a movie that I will rewatch over and over again. And hey, it’s inspired me that by next year, I will find my Christmas person.
More: See The Entire Countdown to Christmas Schedule Here
