Before this Christmas season is over, you may know everything there is to know about Yuletide movies, particularly of the romantic comedy variety.  As has been oft repeated by me, they are usually less about the holiday and more about boy meets with girl with a seasonal backdrop.  In this sense, The Christmas Classic (2023) is no different.  If there is anything that separates it from its cinematic cousin, it is its cast.  For the others, occasionally you will get a character played by someone who will look familiar, but you just cannot quite place the face.  Typically, this is not the protagonist.  In today’s example, you have two female leads who, if you watched any comedies of the early 2000s, you will recognize.  Otherwise, it is the inevitable pairing that comes together on December 25^th, but without any reference to why that day is important.

What Elizabeth Bird (Malin Akerman) wishes would be less important at the beginning of The Christmas Classic is how much people are paying attention to a viral video of her singing karaoke.  Actually, the film starts with a cartoon version of this event.  It is her drunk at a company Christmas party belting out her own version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” with lyrics that do not flatter herself or her co-workers.  She works for a real estate development company in San Francisco and she departs for her hometown in New Mexico where she is tasked with purchasing the Alto Ski Lodge.  Upon arrival, she is greeted by Randy Collins (Ryan Hansen), who is dressed like any other employee.  At length, he agrees to take her to the owner, only to find out that the person she seeks is him.  Given that this is where she is from, she is surprised by this information because they knew each other when they were younger.  He had lost a lot of weight and lived practically an entire life since last they had seen each other.  Their reunion is not an unhappy one, but he is also uninterested in selling.  She claims that is the best move because if he does not do it, her company will find a more willing customer in the next town and develop there, taking away his customers.  This does not entirely convince him, but he does offer a compromise: if she can defeat her sister, Lynn Flynn (Amy Smart), in the annual eponymous event, he will sell.  Lynn has won the Christmas Eve winter competition nine years running, and everyone expects her to get her tenth.  This brings up a number of problems for Elizabeth.  First, she had only planned on staying for as long as it took to make the deal, and she had brought no extra clothing with her.  Secondly, she has not been home since Lynn had gotten married ten years ago, an occasion which had been as embarrassing for Elizabeth as the karaoke video.  At the same time, there is the enticement of beating the ultra-competitive Lynn, which is what gets Elizabeth to agree to the proposition.  What this means for the immediate future is that she has to visit her parents, who are not expecting her.  They are happy and surprised to see her, and she plays off her visit as if she had planned it, lying about her clothes getting lost with her luggage by the airline.  Elizabeth had already seen Lynn and her family at Alto, but Lynn comes over (she lives next door) soon thereafter because she has learned about her sister’s internet fame.  Her dramatics make Elizabeth want to beat Lynn that much more.  They also convince Randy to abandon giving the Flynn family his technical knowhow for their home’s light display to help Elizabeth.  It is also evident that he is sweet on Elizabeth.  Additionally, she is getting training from him on the slopes since, aside from house decorations, sledding and skiing are components of The Christmas Classic.  As you can probably guess if you have any knowledge of these movies, doing all these things slowly changes her mind on her hometown and her family.  Yet, would you be shocked to learn that just as she is settling in and getting closer to Randy, her fiancé from San Francisco, Connor Harris (Wes Hager), shows up for a visit.  His father owns the company she works for, and he has little patience for the festivities he has to endure.  To placate him, she says that she will get the property no matter what, which is news to Randy.  It becomes noteworthy when she intentionally loses the last leg of the competition.  Seeing the downcast look on Randy’s face, Elizabeth tries to get Connor to agree to let her stay in town to help manage the project.  Connor takes this as an insult, and he fires Elizabeth as she angrily defends her family from his cruel words.  Those cruel words include him revealing the fact that she had no intention of staying when she originally came, and that she has a low opinion of her relations.  She naturally quits her job, but everyone else is hurt by this revelation.  It is her father, Jimmy Bird (Chris Mullinax), who provides the right council.  He advises that they will be happy if she stays, and that Randy will forgive her, too.  That last bit happens the next morning as he is standing outside the Bird house.  They kiss, they dance to Aunt Betsy’s (Pamela K. Witte) island Christmas music, and even Lynn joins in the merrymaking.

In other words, The Christmas Classic ends like the rest of these films do.  The title should tell you everything you need to know about it, and how it fits with other seasonal movies.  To that end, I took few notes and caught myself dozing in a few moments.  The only aspect of any interest from a Catholic perspective is Jimmy.  He is the one family member who treats people with any sort of Christian feeling.  Such a descriptor may not be fair considering this film has nothing to do with the reason for the season, but it fits all the same.  He is instantly accepting of Elizabeth despite her long absence, simply happy that she is present.  He does not question her bogus story about lost luggage and a surprise visit.  Finally, he is the first to forgive her when her lie is revealed.  These are all behaviors that can be attributed to God.  He would do all these things for us as readily as Jimmy, even more so, because it is with Him that grace originates.  Indeed, it is not Him that rejects us, but rather us that reject Him.  Many of us can feel that we have been away from Him for too long, or get stuck on how we perceive the enormity of our sins, and think there is no way God can love us so fully.  It is a product of our fallen world that we think this way, but Christmas gave us hope for something better.  What would make this film better, as with all the rest, would be some recognition of this fact.

The fact remains that, even with a more recognizable cast, The Christmas Classic is no different from any other film that I have reviewed for this season.  Further, there is a strange and slightly disturbing amount of innuendo in it.  All these taken together mean that you can safely skip this one.