I remember how I found out about Santa Claus.
My sister and I shared a bed, and we wanted bunk beds. One night, we fell asleep and somehow ended up on the couch. When I woke up, I heard something happening in our room and went to investigate.
There were my dad and his best friend, putting together our beds.
The next morning, those bunk beds had a sign saying they were from Santa. I knew my Dad wasn’t a pleasantly plump man with a beard. What was going on?
I never told my father what I saw. Even then, I think I understood that telling him would take something away from a moment he had worked hard to give us. He wanted us to wake up to something wonderful. He wanted us to believe.
And honestly? Remembering that night now, I don’t think the magic disappeared when I saw who was putting the beds together. It just changed.
That’s why a Christmas movie about a little girl who believes she’s met Santa Claus is going to get to me. I’m already invested. Give that little girl someone who listens to her, a mother who wants to understand what she needs, and a community finding its way toward each other?
Fine. My Grinch heart is growing again.
Leah Is the Heart of This Christmas Story
Leah is the MVP of this movie, and it isn’t simply because her belief in Santa is adorable.
She’s a little girl trying to understand her place in a family’s history. She loves her mother, Maren, and is loved unconditionally in return. But she still wants a connection with a grandparent, and Christmas makes that longing harder to ignore.
I appreciate that the story gives her room to want that connection without making it a judgment on the family she already has.
Being loved doesn’t mean you never feel an absence. And wondering about the people who came before you doesn’t mean the people raising you haven’t given you enough.
Maren recognizes that. She doesn’t dismiss Leah’s feelings or try to convince her she shouldn’t have them. Instead, she helps her find an opportunity for connection through the Christmas Companions program at a local retirement community.
That willingness to listen says a lot about their relationship. Maren doesn’t need to have an immediate answer for everything her daughter feels. She just needs to take those feelings seriously.
And she does.
An Answer About Santa
When Leah meets Kris, she’s convinced he’s Santa Claus.
Naturally, she starts paying attention. Every detail becomes a possible clue, and there’s something so sweet about watching a child approach the world with that much possibility still in it.
But the moment that really got me was her asking him to be her grandpa.
That’s a vulnerable thing to ask someone. Beneath the excitement about Santa is a little girl being honest about what she wants.
Kris tells her he can’t replace her grandfather, but he can be her friend.
I loved that answer. It was perfect and honorable.
He doesn’t promise to fill a place that belongs to someone else. He offers her a relationship they can build together. There’s room for her to miss her grandfather and still enjoy getting to know Kris.
Their friendship also encourages Leah to learn more about her family. When Maren creates a book about her grandfather, it gives her daughter something she can return to: stories, memories, a connection she can hold in her hands.
That’s such a meaningful Christmas gift. Maren can’t give Leah time with someone who is gone, but she can help her know him.
And in Maren sharing those memories, she gets to keep part of her father’s story moving forward.
Maren Knows How to Help. Accepting Help Is Harder.
Maren (Amy Groening) spends her life being useful.
She’s raising Leah, running her late father’s hardware store, and helping people around town repair whatever needs fixing. When the retirement community’s renovation runs into trouble, of course she offers to step in.
She cares. She has the skills. People need her.
But there’s a difference between being capable of carrying something and needing to carry it alone.
That’s what makes her relationship with Reid interesting. He isn’t just a potential romance added to her busy life. Getting close to him asks her to make room for needs she’s accustomed to putting behind everyone else’s.
And that can be frightening when you’re used to being the person with the solution.
Helping finish a community room gives her a clear task. Letting someone care for her is less straightforward. There’s no checklist for trusting that another person might stay, or believing that wanting their company is enough reason to let them in.
A Slow Burn About Learning to Stay
What drew me into Maren and Reid’s (Michael Rady) relationship wasn’t simply wanting them to kiss, although I was certainly not opposed.
It was watching two people recognize feelings they didn’t quite know what to do with.
Reid’s work takes him from one community to the next. He helps establish places where other people can belong, then prepares to leave. That makes his connection with Maren especially poignant: he’s building something he may finally want to be part of.
His honesty about the temporary nature of his assignment matters. So does Maren’s hesitation. She has a daughter and a life rooted in this town. The possibility of getting attached to someone who already expects to leave isn’t a small complication.
Their slow burn works because the feelings have consequences.
And when Reid realizes he wants to stay, the romance becomes more than enjoying whatever time they have left. He has to make a decision about the kind of life he wants.
I’m sorry, but a man choosing to put down roots because he’s found people he wants to keep showing up for? At Christmas?
Yes. That will work on me.
Countdown to Christmas Is Better When the Community Matters
I’m beginning to think the movies in a Countdown to Christmas weekend sometimes speak to each other. This weekend, I kept finding stories about people looking for somewhere—and someone—that felt like home.
I’m not complaining.
There’s something comforting about a Christmas movie that lets the love story exist within a larger circle of relationships. Maren and Reid matter, but so do Leah and Kris. So does the room everyone is working to finish. These connections give the romance a life beyond the couple.
The community room becomes a place worth caring about because we’ve seen what bringing people together makes possible.
For Leah, it offers friendship. For Maren, it opens up a part of her life she hasn’t given much attention to. For Reid, it becomes somewhere he wants to remain after the work is done.
That’s the Christmas feeling I want: people gradually realizing that they have something to offer each other beyond a favor or a finished project.
Maybe I Still Want to Believe
When Kris tells Leah he isn’t Santa, she’s disappointed, but the friendship still matters. What he’s given her doesn’t disappear with that answer.
Then he disappears on Christmas Eve.
Convenient? Absolutely.
Did I immediately start reconsidering whether he might be Santa after all? Also absolutely.
I’m willing to leave a little room for magic.
I think about my dad putting those bunk beds together while he thought we were asleep. All that work, just so we could wake up and believe something wonderful had happened for us.
It had. I just understood it differently after that night.
This movie brought me back to that feeling. Leah wants to believe in Santa, but what stayed with me was how carefully the people around her responded to her hope. They listened. They shared. They made room.
And if a Christmas movie can make me remember that night with my dad a little more tenderly, it’s earned its place in my Countdown to Christmas.
