My original rules for ChabertQuest 2025 included not re-watching and re-posting on movies I'd already seen and written up. Somehow it bothered me that I didn't rewatch this one even though I'd previously seen The Tree That Saved Christmas (2014) and wrote it up back during lockdown.
All I remembered was that the snow was pretty much non-existent (in Vermont on December) and maybe you could see some blankets thrown down to double as snow. So, I decided to give it one more whirl to make sure no Chabert-stone was left unturned during ChabertQuest.
This may have aired on Hallmark, but, is so, it's a small, indie movie that was licensed to Hallmark, which was their model for a while. These days, I think they own a lot more of the movies that they air. Thus, older movies like this are out there, but not officially Hallmark at this point.
This movie arrives in Year 2 of Chabert making movies for Hallmark-type outfits. She'd made Matchmaker Santa in 2013, and by 2014 was in A Royal Christmas, which is kind of considered a Hallmark classic by Hallmark nerds, and is arguably the real start of Chabert's rise to Hallmark supremacy. In 2014, for good or ill, she also made this movie.
Chabert plays a young woman who grew up on a Christmas tree farm, but who is now is a business lady in the city. She, of course, would rather be writing short stories. As a child she had a favorite tree that she saved from a chainsaw, and by Christmas magic, that same tree winds up in her boss's apartment. She steals the tree and returns home to the farm - which she just found out is being foreclosed upon.
Chabert and her brother do what they can to try to save the house and their parents' Christmas Tree farm, which is an odd choice as (1) her parents seem fine/ resigned and are ready to move on, and (2) the sale could be a nest-egg for her parents' comfortable retirement. After all, the tree farm is failing anyway, and her dad can't keep doing it every year as he ages.
ALSO - the town is failing, and if they plow down the farm, a resort is coming that could provide jobs.
But Lacey has to have her farm that she doesn't plan to live at anymore, anyway.
For the most part, it's pretty much boilerplate "save the Christmas tree farm" with the most affordable supporting actors they could find. The oddball part of it is that she has a boss who would normally be her suitor - he has two adorable kids who Chabert babysits - but she also has an ex-boyfriend whose career she has to ruin by convincing him that working for his father's bank is evil.
Is it stupid?
Yeah... yeah it is. It doesn't make any sense. It's just Christmas movie ideas slopped together into a 90 minute package without worrying about whether any of it works. I mean, arguably, Chabert's character is incredibly selfish or she's an idiot.
The woman playing Chabert's mom looks to be 12-15 years older than a 30-ish Chabert. This is clearly not Vermont. The cabin we're told is historic looks like it's maybe 20 years old. And I question the ethics of the film's conclusion. Also, it sure seems like when she goes back to New York, Chabert's boss is going to make his move - one doesn't just save an employees' family's Christmas Tree farm for purely altruistic reasons. Also, the boss has millions, just made Chabert a published writer, and the ex-boyfriend just made himself unemployed and is stuck in the town where they grew up that she says would suffocate her.
Nonetheless, Chabert the actor kind of holds the movie together. There's a lot of angst going on in the film for her character, and she pulls it off just fine. But she has better chemistry with her brother and boss than she does with her supposed romantic interest.
I read once that the scripts for these movies were pounded out in a few weeks between when the pitch was taken by Hallmark and when the cameras rolled, and I believe it. If they had this script in hand and it wasn't a rush job... woof.
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