Grade: D+
Channel: Hallmark
Whoa Nelly! My eyes were rolling so much that I got a headache. This was seriously one of the cheesiest Christmas movies I've EVER seen. Let's get to it!
The story is: SHE is Annie Claus, daughter of Santa and Mrs. Claus. Annie goes on rumspringa for a month, at the end of which she will decide if she wants to carry on the family business or stay with whatever man she meets out in the big, bad world. 'Cause that's what it comes down to, right? Meet a guy and be in love or have a career. Right.
Anywhoodle,
Annie is a ginger as is her mom, played by
Vicki Lawrence. Where's she been? Oh and it's worth noting that in this movie, Santa's first name is...Calvin. Annie throws a magic dart at a magic globe and it lands on Los Angeles. Joy.
What she doesn't know is that Santa's chief of operations, the senior most elf, if you will, gets her job if she passes. He's arranged it so that she will meet and fall in love with an actor he's hired. The actor is NOT the HE in this movie. But I'll get to him in a second. She arrives in LA looking terribly out of place but is eternally cheerful about it all. You'd think the random teen thugs who throw soda on her from their jeep (who does that?!?!) would get her down but no. She will find a way to love every minute of her time out of the North Pole. She decides to stay at the Candy Cane Motel, which is run by
Vivica A. Fox of all people. Vivica is a single mom, natch of Mia. Mia is getting picked on by a couple of stereotypical teens who are jealous of her solo in the pageant.
Annie is out wandering and stumbles across the most boring toy shop in all the world. She insinuates herself into the toy store run by our HE. He is Ted, owner of the store, and Ted is played by my second favorite actor-with-an-underbite,
Sam Page. I like Sam Page. Sam Page is the only reason this is not a D-.
 |
| C'mon! Too cute. |
So He isn't totally thrilled with her taking over his store but he has his mind on the fact that he's not keeping up with his payments to the bank. Gee, I wonder if She will come to his rescue at any point in this. He hires her to help out but can't pay her. She doesn't care. Meanwhile she's met this actor dude that the cranky elf hired and he's a doozy. He's pretending to be a lawyer who spends his free time at a local orphanage. He's awful but she can't see through him. I guess you can't blame her though because she's been surrounded by elves her whole life and lived in relative seclusion in a frozen tundra.
OH!!! The worst part of this movie is the most creep-tastic part of it. For some reason the Santa and Mrs. Claus think it's a good idea to spy on Annie while she's gone. They give her a snow globe for when she gets homesick but what she doesn't know is it's a magic snow globe and THEY WATCH HER. LIKE A LOT.
Anywhoodle, she takes over the pageant, fixes up his store, dates the icky actor, becomes friends with the motel owner and daughter, and honestly doesn't give much thought to the big decision coming up. She finds out the truth about the icky actor but totally misses the fact that He has totally fallen in love with her. She heads back to the North Pole but Santa and Mrs. Claus show her the secret footage the snow globe is still recording at the motel. He loves her and wishes he could find her. Oh and I think the store is saved but I don't think they ever really address that officially. She and Santa drop in and fill everyone in on her secret identity. She and He live happily ever after.
This was incredibly goofy and the girl playing Annie,
Maria Thayer, giggled the entire time. The acting was terribly cheesy, which was probably on purpose but just came off as really annoying. It was entirely too predictable, even for a Christmas tv movie. The worst bit? The background music never stopped. NOT ONCE. It continued even while people were having conversations. Awful. I was so glad when it was over.
I need a palate cleanser. I hope Day 7's movie is better. I don't know what it is yet but it's got a lot of work to do to make me believe again.
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