After I watched The Flight Before Christmas, it was time to continue cleaning out the DVR by watching The Christmas Gift!  The Christmas Gift was one of the first Christmas films to show up on Lifetime this year, premiering on November 30th.

Megan (Michelle Trachtenberg) is an ambitious writer who works for a tabloid magazine and who is frustrated by the fact that she’s only assigned to write articles about the best lip gloss for fair skin.  As well, her boorish boyfriend, and fellow journalist, Alex (Daniel Booko) not only dumps her but gets assigned the big story that she wanted!  Michelle’s editor, Cooper (Rick Fox), tells her that, if she really thinks that she deserves better assignments, then she needs to go out and find a story that proves it.

Megan returns home to discover that her aunt has sent her a package of her old belongings.  Going through it, Megan comes across a notebook that was anonymously given to her one Christmas many years ago.  The notebook — and the poem that was inscribed within — inspired Megan to become a writer.  She decides, for her story, to track down the person who gave her the notebook.

Her investigation leads her to Wesley Hardin Johnson, Jr. (Sterling Sulieman), who runs a foster care program.  Megan says that she wants to do a story about the program and the kids that Wesley is helping.  Wesley agrees, on the condition that the story be about the kids and not about him.  For reasons that only make sense when you consider that this is a Lifetime holiday film, Megan decides that this means that she shouldn’t tell him about the notebook.

Not only does Megan have a hit story but she and Wesley are also falling in love!  However, Megan then discovers why her aunt sent her all of her old stuff.  It turns out that her aunt’s retirement community is about to be leveled and repalced with condos.  And who is evicting Megan’s aunt?  None other than Wesley’s father, Wesley Hardin Johnson, Sr. (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs)…

Needless to say, it all leads to misunderstandings and conflicts but it’s nothing that can’t be solved within 90 minutes of narrative.  This is a Lifetime Christmas film, after all.  You watch it with the full knowledge that everything’s going to turn out okay.  The Christmas Gift is a good-natured and likable holiday movie and Michelle Trachtenberg does a pretty good job in the lead role.

Perhaps what is most interesting about The Christmas Gift is that it was directed by the incredibly prolific Fred Olen Ray, who is better known for directing horror films and thrillers than for directing sweet-natured family films.  (That said, if you look at his filmography, you’ll actually come across several movies that you wouldn’t normally associate with him.)  Someday, someone is going to write the definitive overview of Ray’s long and varied career and, hopefully, I will be one of the first to read it.