When I think of Christmas, I think of traditions.
As a kid of divorced parents, I grew up with a lot of them. Different households, different expectations, different ideas about how the holiday should look. Some contradicted each other, but that never really mattered to me. It was Christmas. I would take all the traditions.
Those moments became my memories. They’re part of who I am.
So give me a Countdown to Christmas movie about family traditions, finding your way home, and falling in love when you finally stop answering work emails? I’m sitting down. And apparently, I’m putting my phone away, because A Danish Christmas made me feel personally called out.
In the best way.
Starring Emilie Ullerup and Corey Sevier, this one reminded me why I love Christmas movies. Sometimes I want the grand romantic moment. Sometimes I want to be transported somewhere beautiful. And sometimes I want a movie to gently remind me that I’m missing the life happening in front of me because I’m too busy checking whether someone needs something.
This movie managed to do all three.
Christmas Doesn’t Need You to Manage It
Marie and Ryan are people who know how to work. Slowing down? That’s a different conversation.
And I recognized a little too much of myself in them.
While watching these two struggle to disconnect, I realized my phone was in my hand. I was checking the screen just in case someone needed me, as though the entire world might fall apart if I became unavailable for the length of a Christmas movie.
I put it down.
Marie returns to her family’s inn in Copenhagen, but coming home doesn’t mean she knows how to stop working. She sees things that need fixing and immediately gives herself a job. Then she mistakes Ryan for a travel writer, and his stay becomes another project she needs to get right.
There’s comfort in being useful. If you’re solving problems, you don’t necessarily have to sit with your own.
For Marie, that includes uncertainty about her career and the possibility of losing the family inn. Her mother’s plan to sell makes every imperfect detail feel more urgent. Suddenly, creating the perfect Christmas experience seems like a way to keep everything else from changing.
I understood that impulse. Especially at Christmas, when wanting things to feel familiar can become its own kind of pressure.
But the harder Marie works to manufacture the feeling, the more she risks missing it.
You Can Carry a Tradition Forward Without Recreating It
The Christmas tour Marie revives belonged to her father. That makes it more than an itinerary.
She’s trying to reconnect with something he created, something she remembers as special. And there’s a tenderness in watching her discover that remembering how a tradition felt isn’t the same as knowing how to reproduce it.
As children, we don’t necessarily notice the effort behind the holiday. We remember the food, the outings, the people who made everything feel exciting. Later, when we try to create that same experience ourselves, we discover how much work someone was quietly doing.
Marie’s attempts don’t always go smoothly, but that’s what makes them meaningful. She cares so much about honoring the memory that she puts pressure on herself to get every detail right.
What she’s still learning is that she can bring something of herself to it.
That idea really got to me. Traditions can change without losing their connection to the people who gave them to us. Sometimes keeping them alive means allowing them to become something we can actually live in, rather than something we’re afraid to touch.
The Romance Happens When the Plan Falls Apart
Ullerup and Sevier are a treat together because Marie and Ryan’s connection develops around the moments she can’t quite control.
She’s trying to deliver an impressive experience. In the process, they begin enjoying each other.
And that distinction matters.
A carefully planned outing can give two people somewhere to go, but it can’t decide how comfortable they’ll feel together. It can’t manufacture the little moments when someone makes you laugh or takes an interest in something you thought nobody else would care about.
That’s where this romance worked for me. Marie is so focused on what Ryan might think of the inn that she doesn’t immediately recognize how much his opinion matters to her personally.
Ryan, meanwhile, gets pulled into something more meaningful than the break his sister booked for him. These are two people accustomed to being available for work who gradually become more present with each other.
That’s romantic to me. Someone making you want to put the phone down. Someone turning an unfamiliar place into somewhere you don’t want to leave.
Being Honest Is the Part She Can’t Plan Around
The mistaken identity gives the story its complications, but the hurt underneath it makes sense.
When Ryan discovers why Marie has been giving him so much attention, he has reason to question what was genuine. The connection may have become real for her, but he still has to reconsider the time they spent together.
And Marie has already been struggling with honesty at home. Telling her family she received a promotion rather than admitting her professional uncertainty suggests how closely she connects being successful with being okay.
She wants to return home with good news. She wants to help save the inn. She wants to be the person who has things handled.
But letting people love that version of you is easier than letting them see you’re scared.
That’s why her apology to Ryan matters. She has to stop managing his impression of her and tell him the truth. No carefully curated adventure can do that work for her.
Their relationship has somewhere to go once she gives him the chance to know what’s actually happening.
This Is the Countdown to Christmas Feeling I Want
The food, the Christmas markets, the dancing around the tree—I loved being swept into all of it.
For stretches of A Danish Christmas, I stopped thinking about the mechanics of the story and simply settled into the experience. It brought me back to the feeling of participating in a tradition because someone you love invited you into it.
That’s what made the setting feel meaningful. Copenhagen gives the movie its Christmas atmosphere, but the relationships give those experiences their warmth.
Marie’s time with her mother, sister, niece, and nephew matters because she’s returning to a family that exists beyond the problems she thinks she needs to solve. Ryan’s presence gives her another reason to slow down and experience that world instead of constantly trying to improve it.
And somewhere in there, my Grinch heart grew a size.
Because Christmas doesn’t have to be another thing we prove we’re good at. We’re allowed to enjoy it before everything is finished. We’re allowed to admit we’re uncertain, accept an imperfect evening, and spend time with people without making ourselves useful first. Love or hate Christmas, it’s all allowed.
A Danish Christmas gave me the romance and traditions I wanted. It also made me put down my phone long enough to enjoy them.
For someone who had been checking whether anybody needed her, that felt like a pretty good gift.
