Christmas Festival of Ice

Christmas Festival of Ice tagline: 

"The law may be her calling but it's ice sculpting that truly melts her heart."


Hallmark Holiday Movie Checklist:

• A character whose parents showed her/him the meaning of true love and he/she won't settle for anything less
• A handsome/beautiful, single man or woman who runs their family Christmas tree lot and/or farm
• A small town Christmas tradition/festival/competition that is the biggest event of the year (The Westford Ice Sculpting Competition!) 

Please glance longingly at my hammer.

Synopsis:

Emma just got out of law school, which she was pretty meh about, and is a terrible employee at her mom's law office in the small town of Westford. When the town's ice sculpting competition is threatened by a disappearing town budget and an incompetent councilman, the lure of shaving ice into a reindeer head becomes too strong for Emma and she is whipped into a chipping fever! Enter kindly, handsome single Christmas tree lot owner Nick, who fans the flames of Emma's ice sculpting fever by pretending not to be a talented ice sculptor because he, like, had his heart broken during a competition or something. Apparently, there are many sad tales of heartbreak and woe in the cutthroat world of competitive ice sculpting. Will Nick come clean about his hidden ice carving talents? Will Emma save her town's ice sculpting competition? Will they team up and win the whole gosh, darn thing? Get ready, Christmas Festival of Ice, we are coming for you. 

Favorite Line:

Emma (to her dad): "You always told me to keep my mind on the big picture but my eyes on each little cut."

Whoa. Emma's dad's life lessons are a bit menacing. 

Random Thoughts We Had During this Movie: 

We start the movie with a nostalgic montage of pictures of Emma and her dad and their ice sculpting creations over the years. He must be dead. Oh, wait. He's not. What a twist, Hallmark! 

This is Emma's dad's idea of an ice sculpture that's almost finished: 

WHY DOESN'T IT HAVE HANDS? OR A FACE?

Emma's dad is a little creepy.

Nick is handsome, single and has graciously taken over his parent's Christmas Tree lot and farm. According to my friend Harry, if this were real life, Nick would be a chain-smoking, dirty garbage can. Probably with a carnie lineage. 

He is obviously the ice sculptor who has created all of the lovely ice sculptures in his Christmas tree lot but instead of fessing up to the attractive Emma, who clearly is turned on by carving ice, he awkwardly makes up a fake brother. Huh?

Nick's business partner is named Lonnie Barnes. I have so many issues with the name Lonnie. 

"We try to keep an eye on him but sometimes he wanders off. I hope he wasn't too exasperating." - Lonnie,  talking to Emma, referring to Nick. They are all laughing like this is the most hysterical thing that anyone has said in the history of saying things. 

Emma's dad is talking about his "ice sculpting connections" as if they are an underground ring like fight club. With ice picks. Emma's dad is getting creepier and creepier. 

Why is Nick keeping up this weird fake brother pretense? This is bananas. 

Emma has been disappearing from the office frequently and is lying about where she is. She's crap at her job. Emma's mom should fire her. And she only raised 5k for the ice sculpting competition so far. So, she's also crap at raising money. 

Is she seriously considering giving up being a lawyer to pursue a life of competitive ice sculpting? That's a poor life choice. 

According to Emma, people from all over the country visit Westford's Christmas website! What? Do other small towns create Christmas websites? Once again I am left to feel inadequate due to my town's lack of Christmas website. Thanks, Hallmark. 

Surprise, surprise. An anonymous donor just gave 10k to keep the ice sculpting competition alive. Westford is SAVED!

Emma and her dad will come out of retirement to take Westford's ice sculpting competition by storm! Let's check out their earlier work. Their floating reindeer head is clearly the stuff of nightmares:  

Emma's dad looks like he has just murdered an entire family and buried them in his backyard. Underneath a graveyard of melting ice sculptures.  

"Having an anti-social brother saves a lot of time." WHAT? No, Nick, it actually doesn't. It wasted a good 37 minutes of this movie. 

Emma's dad has this sinister eavesdropping thing down. After witnessing the touching scene between Emma and Nick, he will either kill Nick or drop out of the competition so that Nick and Emma can chip sweet, sweet ice together. Darn, it's the latter. I am clearly not invested in Nick and Emma's love story.

Our text message exchange during the scene where Emma reveals to her mom that she does not want to be a partner in her mother's law office and where Emma's mom reveals that SHE was the anonymous donor who gave that 10k to keep the ice sculpting competition alive: 

Beth: The amount of steam coming from their breathing in this scene is super distracting. 

Laura: Also, THERE IS NO MONEY IN ICE SCULPTING. 

Beth: It is not a career. 

Laura: IT IS NOT A CAREER

Beth: So her mom spent 10k plus the cost of Emma's fucking education to teach her that she doesn't really want to be a laywer but she wants to be an ice sculptress instead?

Laura: It makes no sense, Beth. It is next level bonkers.

Beth: If anyone loves her, they need to sit her down and talk about what went wrong in her life for her to choose competitive ice sculpting over the law. I keep hoping they will knock over their ice sculpture. 

Laura: What is Hallmark teaching us? Live your dreams, kids. Even if it's an obscure hobby that there is LITERALLY no money in. 

"The most important thing is your happiness, Emma." No, Emma's mom, I'm pretty sure a roof over your daughter's head is the most important thing. 

Nick and Emma won the ice sculpting competition with their entry "Memories of Westford". They clearly won by playing on the judges' love of Westford nostalgia. Because I can't even tell what their sculpture is. It looks like a building with a melting snowman dancing on top of it. There's something attached to the bottom that might be a star or a bird. Who knows? They've spent the entire movie building up how skilled both Emma and Nick are at ice sculpting so it makes complete sense that we only get a two-second glimpse of their sculpture. 

The councilman just offered Emma a job with the town and she accepts. Wait. What? We spent the last hour and fifty-nine minutes agonizing over Emma's law vs. competitive ice sculpting life dilemma and she accepts a job with the town with no hesitation in a field she has shown zero passion for in the last thirty seconds of the movie? I am enraged. 

Conclusion: Emma's dad is a serial killer.