There are always a lot of Nativity scenes in my town’s Christmas parade.
Author Archives: Dazzling Erin
Holiday Scenes That I Love: Bill Murray’s Final Speech From Scrooged
In this scene from Scrooged, Bill Murray brings the entire theater together for Christmas. That’s the power of being visited by three ghosts.
Artwork of the Day: Santa Is Watching
I Watched Small Town Santa (2014, Dir. by Joel Paul Reisig)
Sheriff Rick Langston (Dean Cain) is having a terrible holiday season. When his ex-wife tells him that she doesn’t want him coming over for Christmas to see their daughter, Sheriff Langston goes to her house and is shocked to discover a fat man with a white beard having a sandwich in the kitchen. The man (Paul Hopper) says he’s Santa Claus. Rick says the man’s under arrest. Everyone in town thinks that Rick is a real Grinch, tossing Santa Claus in jail. But even behind bars, Santa has a way of solving people’s problems.
This is the second film that I’ve watched in two days in which Dean Cain plays a sheriff who arrests Santa. I guess this is the Dean Cain Christmas Cinematic Universe. It would have been funny if Dean Cain had been playing the same sheriff that he played in Defending Santa. How many times can this happen to the same person? In a few years, maybe they will remake The Santa Clause with Dean Cain’s sheriff having to replace Santa after one of his arrests goes wrong.
Small Town Santa has some cute scenes. Rick has a dream where everyone in town turns into Santa and starts telling him how much he sucks. There was a scene with an amateur Christmas pageant that I could relate to. (My 5th grade performance as Shepherd #3 was critically acclaimed!) Speaking of amateurish, some of the acting could be described that way but Dean Cain is believable and likable as the burned-out small town sheriff. Keep an eye out for the “Real Heroes Don’t Wear Capes” poster.
Santa Claus solves everyone’s problems. I knew he would!
Holiday Scenes That I Love: A Visit With Santa From A Christmas Story
Like most of you, I watch this movie every Christmas.
I’m nearly 100% sure that’s not the real Santa.
Artwork of the Day: Snowman
I Watched Defending Santa (2013, Dir. by Brian Skiba)
After finding a portly man with a big white beard passed out in a snowbank, small town Sheriff Scott Hanson (Dean Cain) brings him to the hospital. When the man wakes up, he says that his name is Kris Kringle (Bill Lewis) but you can call him Santa Claus. Kris uses his powers to give the children in the hospital what they want. (He creates a miniature pony for one girl.) District Attorney Robert Nielson (Gary Hudson) thinks that Kris is a public danger and wants to have him put in the mental ward. Public defender Sarah Walker (Jud Taylor) defends Kris and falls back in love with her ex-boyfriend, Scott. Santa Claus spreads his magic across town. He detoxifies the town drunk but not even Santa can save the life of a dying child. That scene was very sad.
Have you ever wanted to see Santa Claus play football with Dean Cain and Full House‘s Jodie Sweetin? This is the movie for you! Santa Claus plays in the park and even does a front flip. Go Santa Claus Go! But then old St. Nick also uses his powers to cause another player’s pants to fall down during a key play, which allows Dean Cain’s team to win the game. That’s cheating, which I was always told put you on the naughty list.
Speaking of being on the naughty list, it doesn’t ever make sense that the district attorney is so obsessed with putting Kris Kringle. Santa Claus never hurt anyone. Trying to put Santa Claus in jail before Christmas is definitely worth a lump of coal in your stocking! Defending Santa is an okay Hallmark Christmas movie but don’t spend too much time trying to make it make sense.
I Watched A Christmas Reunion (2015, Dir. by Sean Olson)
Amy (Denise Richards) grew up in the small town of Chestnut, where her Aunt Linda (Catherine Hicks) owned the local bakery and hosted the annual Christmas cookie contest. (Yum!) When Amy grew up, she moved away from Chestnut and got a job in New York at an advertising firm run by Don Dupree (Parker Stevenson). When Aunt Linda dies, she leaves half of the bakery to Amy. Aunt Linda’s last request was that Amy restart the annual cookie contest. The only problem is that the other half of the bakery has been left to Amy’s ex-boyfriend, Jack (Patrick Muldoon).
Sometimes, I wish that I lived in Hallmark Christmas movie because I would love to be able to just take off from my job and open a bakery in a small town. That would be a dream come true for me. I baked my first batch of Christmas cookie when I was six! (Mom helped.) Everyone said they were the best they had ever tasted! I think I could have won that cookie contest! Now, I wish I lived in Chestnut but I know that Chestnut is not a real place. It’s just somewhere that we all wish could be real.
I enjoyed A Christmas Reunion. It appealed to the romantic baker in me. Not only did Denise Richards and Patrick Muldoon spend a lot of time in the kitchen but they also outsmarted the crooked lawyer (Jake Busey) who wanted to sell the bakery to a Starbucks. I laughed when Busey gave them a contract to sign and said, “Just sign where the red flags are,” because his whole character was a red flag. A Christmas Reunion may not take place in the real world but it would be nice if it did.
Artwork of the Day: Hello Kitty At Christmas
So, I Watched Christmas Crush (2012, Dir. by Marita Grabiak)
When Georgia Hunt (Rachel Boston) was in high school, she was the queen of the school. She was a cheerleader, a member of the Glee Club, and a member of the Speech and Debate team. She was voted Most Likely To Succeed. Ten years later, Georgia is the unappreciated assistant to a haughty fashion designer and she feels like a failure. While visiting her mother (Marilu Henner), Georgia discovers that her class reunion is coming up. Georgia decides to go because she wants to win back her high school boyfriend, Craig (Jon Prescott).
I could tell that this movie was made back when Glee was still a big thing because there’s a whole subplot about the former members of the Glee Club getting back together and performing three numbers at the reunion. When Georgia wasn’t performing on stage, she was in the old practice hall and singing a song with her best friend from high school, Ben (Johnathan Bennett). The Glee Club stuff felt really tacked on but I was happy they went with the Glee stuff instead of having Georgia try to do something stupid and put on her old cheerleader uniform and lead everyone in a cheer. But then Georgia went ahead and did that anyways.
I had some issues with this movie. A major one was what school holds a class reunion a week before Christmas? What type of high school would still have ten year-old graffiti in its bathroom? Georgia somehow opens up her old locker and finds the key to the principal’s office that she hid in there during her senior year and we’re just supposed to accept that no one else has noticed that key in ten years time. (If I went to my former high school tonight and spent hours studying all the lockers, I would still never be able to remember which one used to be mine.) Also, there were a lot of flashback scenes to when everyone was supposed to be a teenager but there wasn’t much effort made to make anyone look younger. My biggest problem was that Craig treated Georgia like crap in high school and at the reunion but she still kept chasing after him even though Ben was obviously in love with her. I didn’t have much sympathy for Georgia. She just seemed pretty dumb about the whole thing.
Christmas Crush shows that you can’t go back to high school, no matter how much you might want to. It’s always better to live in the present.







