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Film Festival: Christmas Fantasy

Eve’s Christmas (2004) begins with Eve running out of her fabulous condo in New York to catch a cab to her Madison Avenue office. She is pitching an ad campaign to Cumberland Wines. She’s got a fabulous city single life.

Eve’s assistant is Mandy (Erin Karpluk), her best friend since childhood. Her boyfriend is the owner of the ad agency, Neil Barlow (a blond Kavan Smith!), a married man.

“I’m the girl in the office that all the wives hate. I’m the other woman! …People have relationships all the time. What is wrong with me? I have talent, I am an artist!” –Eve

Eve is not happy. She was once supposed to get married on Christmas, so she hates the holiday. She hasn’t gone home to see her family in Oregon for 8 years.

She meets a man begging on the street.

“Ya got something on your mind? –Yes, yes, I do. I’d really like to go home. To have a merry Christmas. –Well, if there’s anything you need, don’t forget. It’s Christmas, Eve. You can always wish upon the Christmas star.” –Brother James and Eve

Eve goes home alone to watch video of her last Christmas at home. She wishes on the Christmas star to have the chance to go back and make things turn out differently. She wakes up in her childhood bedroom in 1996.

Eve tries to go through all the events of the week leading up to her planned wedding when she was 24. Her cell phone is huge, she has to go to see her wacky wedding dress designer, and she eats cheese fries at the diner. No one knows what Pilates is.

A cute romantic scene shows us what Eve has lost. She is with her friends at karaoke and her fiancée, Scott (Sebastian Spence), gets up to sing a very romantic tribute to her.

“If I could I’d steal the stars from the sky / Just to give them to you / If I could I’d make the sun always shine” –Scott

Eve gets fired from a barista job. She is happy to see her kind and cheerful parents (Cheryl Ladd and Winston Rekert), but she is really struggling with which life she really wants, her old one with Scott in Oregon, or her new one in New York.

“Do you have any idea of the kind of sacrifices I’ve had to make so that you can get your little second chance? –Sacrifices? – Darn straight, sacrifices. I don’t even get an intern, you know that? They expect me to do all of this by myself. Who ever heard of a guardian angel without an intern?” –Brother James and Eve

Christmas set pieces in Eve’s Christmas include decorating a Christmas tree, fantastic Christmas light displays, Advent calendar, cookie baking, and watching football. Cheryl Ladd makes the sweetest mother, so capable, wise, and loving.

Some great comedy is added with Eve’s wedding planner and her very wild ideas. The actual wedding is my favorite Christmas movie wedding. The bride arrives in a canoe paddled by two groomsmen. Her father stands at the dock to help her out. Eve and Scott marry by the river with snow gently falling.

“When Eve first said she said that she wanted to get married on Christmas, I thought she was nuts. Completely. But if anyone knows anything about the spirit of Christmas, it’s Evie.” –Mandy

Add Eve’s Christmas to your holiday movie rotation if you like romance with comedy, fantasy time travel, and a Christmas wedding.

Resource links for Eve’s Christmas

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427224/
- Eve’s Christmas (2004) from IMDb
http://celebritybabies.people.com/category/elisa-donovan-blog/
- Elisa Donovan’s blog at People Celebrity Babies
http://www.cherylladd.com/
- Cheryl Ladd official website

Affiliate links: if you make a purchase using these links, I’ll receive a small compensation towards maintaining this blog, at no extra cost to you.

If you believe

Elf

Call Me Mrs. Miracle

Film Festival: Christmas Fantasy

A Boyfriend for Christmas (2004) starts with Holly Grant (Kelli Williams) as a sweet girl in middle school in the 1980s. She is the only one with no boyfriend. She’s with her friends at a Salt Lake City mall when she sees a boy having trouble with his little sister at the Santa village.

“I’m too old for toys. –It’s okay. You don’t have to be a child to believe. –I’d like … I’d like a boyfriend for Christmas. –Are you sure you’re ready for a boyfriend? –I don’t know. I think so. –Well when you’re really ready, Holly, you’ll know. And I promise you that I will send you just the right one.” –Holly and Santa

Under the tree she gets a special snowglobe with Santa inside and a special inscription.

“A promised gift will come my dear / A love that’s true and steady / Between now and the end of the twentieth year / when two hearts are ready.”

Twenty years later, Holly is in court representing two foster children. She is trying to return the children to their mother for Christmas, but Ryan Hughes, the mother’s lawyer, has not shown up. Ryan is at the office, trying to convince his client that a big redevelopment project still can support the people with low-income. The children get returned to foster care.

Holly decides to write Ryan a very nasty letter. Holly and her friends meet her mother for lunch. Holly’s old boyfriend, Ted, has come back to town and her mother wants her to resume with him.

Holly goes to the shelter Christmas tree lot with her friend Beth. Ryan (Patrick Muldoon) managed to get the children returned to their mother and he is volunteering at the tree lot. Ryan hears Holly dictate a letter telling him how awful he is. She has a mysterious encounter with Santa (Charles Durning) that makes her wonder.

Back at the office, Ted arrives and tells her he loves her.

“I’m not looking for a relationship right now. Especially not a recycled one.” –Holly

Santa sends Ryan to Holly’s house with a Christmas tree. He is her boyfriend for Christmas. He lies about his name because he knows how mad Holly is at Ryan Hughes. So he is “Douglas Firwood.”

Holly brings Ryan to her parents’ house for Christmas Day. They are all surprised and were expecting Ted. He joins right in assembling children’s toys, watching football, playing Twister, and helping cook.

Holly and Ryan spend a lovely Christmas evening together at her house. When Doug/Ryan goes out to get breakfast, Ted shows up to keep up his pursuit of Holly.

“Alright, so let me get this straight. A stranger shows up at your house dressed as a present from Santa. He makes you breakfast, he charms your family, spends the night, batters your ex-boyfriend with a bag of doughnuts, then disappears? Is that it?” –Beth

Holly can’t figure out how to contact Doug/Ryan or who actually sent him to her. Meanwhile he goes back to shelter to talk with Santa about volunteering more.

Holly brings her snow globe to Santa to ask about her boyfriend present. She thanks Santa for her present and asks if Doug can be her boyfriend for the rest of the week.

“Did you happen to send me a love that’s true and steady? –Only you can answer that my dear. But I can tell you this, souls meant to be together cross paths when, like the verse says, two hearts are ready. But if you fail to recognize the magic of that moment, it will pass.” –Holly and Santa

Holly’s family spends the rest of the week planning her mom’s giant New Year’s party. Her sister-in-law keeps meddling by inviting Ted.

Doug/Ryan repeatedly tries to tell Holly the truth about who he is and he knows how much Holly hates deception, but he is thwarted many times. Will Ryan become a partner in his law firm? Will Holly figure out the one she really loves?

“Secrets? –Yeah. –Do you believe in keeping secrets? –Yeah. No, no, no, no, not between each other. Not between…you know what I mean. –Good. Because after what I’ve been through with Ted it would be impossible for me to fall for someone who wasn’t completely honest.” –Holly and Ryan

Some Christmas movie memes in A Boyfriend for Christmas include the heroine being a champion ice skater and a family touch football game. Have any of you had a man fall madly in love with you after watching you skate?

One crazy thing I actually love about this movie is the way everybody drives around Salt Lake City in December with the tops down on their convertibles.

Shannon Wilcox who plays Holly’s mother, is Kelli Williams’ real mother! Martin Mull plays the dad just the way you would want your dad to behave if you brought a new boyfriend home. And Charles Durning’s portrayal of Santa is one of my favorites. I love the scene in A Boyfriend for Christmas where he visits the ice skating rink on New Year’s Eve.