What Happens When You Spend A Week Watching Christmas 24?

Day 2: Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane 

My second day gave me mixed emotions and disappointments, as my unusually cheerful mood was squashed by dead parents and uninspiring love.

I had spent my Sunday walking around a tinsel-decked shopping centre, buying gifts. Feeling more festive than a mince pie at your mum’s house, I raced home with a spring in my step eager for some Christmas 24. That isn’t even sarcasm, I was absolutely buzzing.

My parents have bought a REAL Christmas tree this year, none of the artificial nonsense, a real actual living relic of yule. Everything was coming together, I really thought tonight would be the turning point. Red wine in hand (I had two glasses for those keeping up on Twitter), I plonked myself down in front of the telly and watched potentially the most depressing, disappointing Christmas film Hallmark has to offer.

Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane, directed by Maggie Greenwald tells the tale of three grief-stricken siblings trying to keep the magic alive after their parent’s death.

Each has a trial or tribulation in their life which tediously links back to their mother and father’s “infamous” Christmas love story. As the plot unfolded, my sanity unraveled with it and my Christmas spirit deflated quicker than an overcrowded bouncy castle.

The main character, Emma (Alicia Witt) miserably plods into the Christmas wreath shop with a face like a smacked-arse and an attitude to boot. This continues throughout. Honeysuckle Lane has yet another antiques dealer love interest, an obvious dislike for New York and the reiteration of “Christmas colours”– both of which must be common recurring themes. If Hallmark is anything, it is consistent (-ly crap).

In between grieving, breaking up with her long-term boyfriend and being rude to the new love interest Morgan (Colin Ferguson), Emma finds some old romantic letters in her mum’s desk, revealing she was engaged to someone else before her dad! Goodness gracious.

A discovery that would apparently destroy her Christmas obsessed older brother and put the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, she tries to find out more about the long-lost-lover.

This discovery bears no relevance to how the film ends, despite being the main storyline – a total fail on the screenwriters part.

The movie’s use of pointless establishing shots and jumpy sub-text resulted in a dream-like mash of disjointed confusing conversations and a disgusting overuse of Christmas iconography.

One positive was the reminder or me to locate some egg nog, because it looks absolutely delicious and I really want to try some. If anyone knows where to get egg nog in the UK or online please get in touch ASAP.

Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane tried very hard to be a profound and emotional addition to Christmas 24, instead it annoyingly presented basic life skills as miracle revelations.

They are as follows:

  1. Don’t get engaged to someone you don’t love
  2. Talking to your family can be a helpful experience
  3. Your mum doesn’t have to tell you every detail about her love life

I think Sleigh Bells Ring could have been the best of a bad bunch. I was trying to remain optimistic for tomorrow but it’s a Thanksgiving movie…WTF?! I was planning to get some mulled wine and maybe even a mince pie, but I guess now I need to get turkey, put marshmallow on everything and kill some natives.

Absolute Mickey-take (as us Brits would say).

The third movie, A Family Thanksgiving (2010) will start tonight at 7pm. Watch along with me (Sky 325 | Virgin 419 | BT 513) and follow my live Tweeting @bloggybalboa.

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