Coming Home for Christmas

Coming Home for Christmas tagline: 

"Danica McKellar is decking the halls and Neil Bledsoe could really use some holiday spirit. But it may be working a little too well."

I don't even know what this means.


Hallmark Holiday Movie Checklist:

• Character who is so completely obsessed with Christmas that he/she beats everyone around them into submission, eventually infusing them with "The Holiday Spirit"
• A flirty snowball fight
• Tragic dead parent who was the embodiment of the holiday spirit
• Character named after some sort of Christmas derivative
• Extravagant Christmas Eve party that everyone attends instead of being at home with their families
• Down on her luck girl loses her job right before Christmas 

I don't know about you but I spend EVERY Christmas Eve in a ball gown, trying to choose between two men. 

Synopsis:

This movie is like Pride and Prejudice met The Christmas Carol and had a bastard child named A Crown for Christmas, which is Danica McKellar's Hallmark Christmas movie circa 2015, and then it married its second cousin, and had another out-of-wedlock baby and named it Coming Home for Christmas. Which is where we begin our tale...

Like most of Hallmark's heroines, Lizzie loses her job a mere week or so before Christmas and has a dead dad. Being an accountant at an insurance company and going to school for Art History qualifies her to become the "House Manager/ Party Planner" of the luxurious estate, Ashford, owned by the prestigious and filthy rich Marley family. Mr. Darcy- I mean Robert Marley- is the stuffy grinch who wants to sell his family's estate and his ne'er-do-well brother, Mr. Wickham - I mean Kip Marley- compete for Lizzie's affections while she plans the last Christmas Eve Ball at Ashford with Pippa, the snotty, elderly matriarch of the family. Whoever shall she choose? 

Favorite Line:

Kip: "You may be the executor of the estate but you're NOT the executor of me."

Kip is everything I aspire to be in life. Bratty, rich and one-dimensional. 

Random Thoughts We Had During this Movie: 

Lizzie lost her job! Lizzie has a dead dad who loved Christmas! Lizzie just doesn't know what she wants to do with her life! Thank god, her realtor sister can get her a job she is grossly unqualified for! 

Hallmark must just film their movies in the same three towns or on the same three sets. I have DEFINITELY seen this street before. 

Mr. Darcy/ Robert Marley plays every scene with a little sarcasm and a thinly veiled level of contempt. But underneath it all, he has a heart of gold. Obvi. 

"Why aren't you married? You're in your thirties, no?" Pippa literally sneered the word "thirties" with utter and complete disdain while Lizzie hangs her head in shame. Lizzie is all of us right now. 

Kip roars into Ashford in a Ferrari or some expensive red car and revs the engine so loud the neighbors six mansions away can hear it. Oh, Kip. You rascal. 

You're right, Pippa. Mistletoe and Martinis are just SO gauche. 

The competitive popcorn-garland-stringing scene between Kip and Robert is fraught with drama and seething jealousy. I am completely invested. 

I bet Lizzie will win everyone over with her infectious and diabolical love of saying the words "Holiday Spirit".

Kip is building a "multi-level gingerbread house with a low HOA". Oh, Kip. You, charming piece of douche pie. 

This family is eviscerating Kip for being terrified of Santa when he was 7. This actually sounds more like my family. Do something once and your family will throw it in your face every holiday until the end of time. 

Mr. Darcy- I mean Robert Marley- really doesn't want to sell Ashford. He's just trying to protect Pippa, who has an unnamed heart condition and won't install an elevator or move downstairs. Because stubborn, old people.  

The Marley Sister-Whose-Name-I-Don't-Remember: "You know what would be fun? Robert could dress up in Grandpa's old Santa Suit."

Robert: "I don't want to scare Kip." 

See, Robert also has a sense of humor! I can't imagine who Lizzie will choose! 

"Bro, who doesn't want to go to Athens?" Oh, Kip. You gingerbread-decorating frat boy, you.

We have now come to the denouement of this Hallmark Holiday film! Kip is going to ask Lizzie to fly to Athens on Christmas Day with him while Robert hides in the bushes and looks on, helplessly. Robert will flee the Christmas Eve ball before he hears Lizzie's rejection speech to our favorite reprobate. 

And the two live alone, miserable for the rest of their lives. JK. Pippa yells at her grandson and shames him into driving over to Lizzie's house where they reunite passionately in her kitchen while her mother and her sister are sitting Indian-style, eavesdropping on their every word. Awkward. 

Conclusion: No family can ever be complete unless they end Christmas Day, holding hands in matching silk pajamas.