The Sweetest Christmas

The Sweetest Christmas tagline: 

"Hallmark Channel is serving up the perfect holiday treat. Now she'll need a little help to make her sweetest dreams come true."


Hallmark Holiday Movie Checklist:

• A flirty Christmas tree decorating scene
• A flirty snowball fight
• A handsome/beautiful single father/mother who runs their family business due to personal tragedy
• A small town Christmas tradition/festival/competition that is the biggest event of the year (THE American Gingerbread Competition, bitches!) 

My favorite part of this picture is the guy behind the curtain who is clapping to no one. 

Synopsis:

Kylie, who gave up her dream of becoming a chef for reasons that don't make much sense, works for her not-quite-right-for-her boyfriend's company Hockey Homes. Over a romantic dinner at her ex-boyfriend Nick's restaurant, Alex decides to ask Kylie to be his... office manager. Confused? Yeah, we were too. Because it's totally normal to blindfold someone, make them walk over rose petals and lead them to a romantic dinner just to ask them to be your office manager. In response to his non-proposal, Kylie decides to enter the seedy, dangerous world of The American Gingerbread competition. When her sister's oven breaks down she has literally no one else to turn to but... Nick, the ex, who happens to own a restaurant with not one but several working ovens! Will Nick, his son and Nick's sassy head chef, Ralphie, help Kylie create the most innovative, delicious gingerbread creation ever tasted? Or will she fail in front of the five people who watch the cable access channel that broadcasts the American Gingerbread Competition?

We would be remiss if we did not point out that this is the FOURTH Hallmark movie Lacey Chabert has played a struggling-to-make-it-chef. So if The Sweetest Christmas and its gingerbread make you ill, you can try All of My Heart, where she plays an aspiring chef who decides to open a B&B when she inherits an old house with a handsome stranger and hijinx ensue! Or Matchmaker Santa where she plays a pastry chef who falls in love with her boyfriend's best friend when they break down outside of a small town, meet the real Santa and hijinx ensue! Or Elevator Girl, where she plays a free-spirit who flirts with the idea of being a caterer/chef but gets stuck in an elevator with a stuffy businessman and hijinx ensue! Okay, we lied, it's actually the FIFTH movie. But only if you count the sequel to All of My Heart, All of My Heart: Inn Love. 

Favorite Line:

Kylie: "He was the first boyfriend I had who used a calendar."

Reach for the stars, Kylie. 

Random Thoughts We Had During this Movie: 

This is the quintessential Hallmark scene where the heroine assumes that her not-quite-right-for-her-boyfriend is going to propose to her but instead asks her about something work-related or completely mundane. This has happened to Lacey Chabert at least twice in the Hallmark universe.

Nick, Kylie's ex, owns a five-star pizza restaurant? This seems highly unlikely. It looks like a run-down diner with a rat problem.

I love that her sister has mentioned her culinary school debt twice in five minutes. Is it just me or do I detect an undercurrent of please-move-out-of-my-house-because-you-have-overstayed-your-welcome-and-it's-annoying-my-husband-and-my-kids?

Is the American Gingerbread Competition Hallmark's version of Cupcake Wars?

Ralphie, the unsung hero of The Sweetest Christmas

Ralphie, Nick's head chef, is the BEST thing about this movie. He's wise, judgemental and can "literally make a panini out of anything including lobster" and he recklessly wastes the kitchen's most expensive ingredients for no other reason than his sassiness. I think he is also the only reason the restaurant is doing well. Nick seems to do absolutely nothing.

She buys one gingerbread book and suddenly she is an expert. If she can learn everything about cooking from a book, why did she waste all that money on culinary school?

The "godmother of gingerbread" is a phrase I never thought I would hear.

Ralphie gets bitchy over his lattes. Ralphie is a national treasure.

This restaurant supply store looks suspiciously like a Bed, Bath and Beyond. My throw pillows are totally on that shelf in the background.

I know we are supposed to care about Nick and Kylie and their tragic past as a high-school couple but this exchange is not endearing:
Kylie: I asked to borrow your lip balm in algebra- that's practically an invitation to ask me out.
Nick: You should know I kept that lip balm way past its expiration date.
Because nothing says love like expired lip balm. Gross, Nick. Gross.

A Merry-Go-Round is special to Kylie and Nick, the world's most boring couple. No doubt this will become important later.

I like how divorce works in the Hallmark Universe. Your ex just disappears from your life and is never seen or heard from again. It probably leads to the kids developing complicated abandonment issues that ruin their future relationships as they age but whatevs.

Ralphie doles out wisdom and love advice like candy. Delicious, judgemental candy. Why isn't this movie about him?

Contestants are now allowed to use AA batteries in their gingerbread submission? O.M.G. The American Gingerbread Contest just took it to the next level.

Do people still string popcorn around their Christmas tree? This seems very messy and incredibly tedious.

We have now come to the point in the Hallmark Christmas movie where the not-quite-right-for-her-boyfriend comes back to foil the love that has just blossomed between the Hallmark heroine (Kylie) and her new love interest (Nick). Normally he does this by proposing in a grandiose and inappropriate manner just in time for the new love interest to walk in and see the heroine in a compromising position with the not-quite-right-for-her-boyfriend. Alex has fulfilled this plot device by inviting the "Godmother of Gingerbread" to compete against Kylie in the Gingerbread competition and create a gingerbread jewelry store that opens its doors to a huge engagement ring.

Who thinks a grand, romantic gesture is making your lost love doubt their gingerbread baking abilities by having her idol become a contestant in the competition she says she wants to win? The prize is 25k. You have now robbed your love interest of her dignity and of 25k. Bad move, bozo.

"Don't, Ralphie me! This is my kitchen. Occasionally, I'm in it." YES, RALPHIE. YES.

At no point during this movie did I see Kylie do anything that implied that this contest was important to her. Granted, she talked about it a lot but she spent 100% of her time shopping, flirting and complaining that her gingerbread creation wouldn't be good enough. Of course, it's not good enough, Kylie, you've done NOTHING.

"I have to tell him (Nick) how I feel the best way I know how. With Gingerbread."

This is how she tells Nick she loves him. THIS TRASH. 

The dude who made the Gingerbread Empire State building totally should have won this contest. Also, I think that was Ralphie's idea originally. BECAUSE RALPHIE WINS AT LIFE.

Conclusion: If Kylie had really wanted to impress us, she should have found a way for her gingerbread horses on her gingerbread Merry-Go-Round to go up and down. With lights. She did not use her AA batteries properly. She let herself, and us, down. Go back to living with your sister and sucking her family dry, Kylie.