Starring Nikki Deloach and Warren Christie
***SPOILER ALERT***
Chris (Gavin Langelo) is dating Joanna (Sydney Scotia) and meeting her parents for the first time at Christmas. Joanna’s en route as well, but she’s been halted by a train delay. Chris asks Joanna’s father, Dave, and stepmother, Nell, (Christie and Deloach), how they met, and they launch into a long story. It all started when they met on a train that got stalled, but they were separated after he got off to buy Nell a fruitcake. Later, they reconnected—only they didn’t realize they’d already met, for they spoke over the phone as Eleanor, a town comptroller, and David, a Christmas festival organizer. Eleanor considered the festival a waste of resources. They argued, and over time the bitterness escalated between them. However, Nell and Dave happened to bump into one another and soon embarked on a tentative romance. But when Nell realized Dave was actually David, she doubted they could ever be together. And in the present, Chris is getting serious about Joanna, but she’s uncertain how she feels about him, undermining their relationship.
PROS
The movie was directed by Jason Bourque, also credited with another 2024 Christmas film, Scouting for Paris. It featured a vibrant script by Joie Botkin, who penned Savoring Paris, one of this year’s best.
Sparks aplenty between Nell and Dave. Thanks to excellent performances by Deloach and Christie, both of whom oozed charm, Nell and Dave seemed captivated with one another from the moment their eyes first met. On the train, full of people heading to an ugly Christmas sweater convention, they traded fun banter, including guessing what the other one did for a living (she pegged him as a coffee shop owner, while he thought she was a lawyer) and sharing their love for the same fruitcake. Their meet-cute sparkled.
You couldn’t escape the powerful sense that these two were destined for one another. However, fate sometimes seemed to conspire against them, for in a later chance meeting on the street, Dave had to run to the coffee shop to briefly talk to Joanna, while Nell needed to move her vehicle. When he couldn’t find Nell, he assumed she’d taken off. And in a second chance meeting, they exchanged numbers, but he couldn’t remember hers and she accidentally trashed her phone and couldn’t retrieve his. In screwball comedy fashion, these consecutive mishaps added a generous dose of humor to Our Holiday Story. And I loved the zest with which the couple, so at ease with one another in the present, narrated their story to Chris.
Later, after Joanna engineered a Christmas party date between Nell and her father, the couple shared a magical slow dance, and Nell, who’d grown up poor and always sought security, began to feel as if she belonged—at least until Dave revealed he was the festival organizer, stunning her and prompting her insecurity to kick in.
The drama of young love. Similarly, Joanna and Chris’s relationship was fraught with insecurity. This secondary romance was just as compelling as Nell and Dave’s, with Scotia and Langelo beautifully portraying heartfelt emotion. Their romance highlighted how intense and irrational young love can be. Chris desperately wanted to tell Joanna he loved her but was disheartened that she’d been delayed. Joanna longed to hear him declare his feelings for her, but she fled when he almost did because she was unsure of her feelings for him. Dejected, Chris headed back to the city, and Joanna realized she loved him because she was so heartbroken that he’d left. At the festival dance, they finally understood they were meant to be.
The big confession. Nell felt uncomfortable not telling Dave she was Eleanor. She began to confess, but at the mere mention of Eleanor’s name, Dave said, “Ugh” and described her as someone who “sucked the joy out of everything” and was “inherently unlikeable.” Furious, Nell called him irresponsible and fled. Nell’s second stab at a confession was interrupted when a fire inspector called her Eleanor in front of Dave. Dave was gutted that she’d allowed him to pour out his heart to her and be vulnerable, but she’d been scared to tell him the truth because she feared that David and Eleanor, whose relationship was fractious, could never work out. He came to the same conclusion. Her trepidation about revealing the truth was understandable, and the crisis was well acted by the leads; the deep hurt their characters felt was palpable. At the urging of Nell’s friend Isadora (Princess Davis) and Dave’s ex-wife, Chloe (Lisa Durupt), the two found one another, and she retracted her opinion that he was irresponsible and he called her “terrifyingly unbelievably likeable”!
CONS
Cinematic whiplash. The film wove together a present-day storyline with extensive flashbacks to the “how we met” tale. Such a structure is challenging, potentially leading to confusion for some viewers or a choppy feel. It can be hard to immerse yourself in a movie with too many jumps back and forth through time. The movie did feel choppy, and sometimes I wasn’t sure at first whether we were in the past or the present, since many characters appeared in both storylines. A strong visual cue—perhaps a soft-focus look to the flashbacks—would have helped to more easily differentiate past and present.
My grade for Our Holiday Story: A-
Caroline Kaiser is a professional book editor who specializes in fiction and memoirs, and she’s been guiding writers toward publication since 2007. Caroline is also the author of two ghostly mystery novels, Virginia’s Ghost and The Spirits of South Drive. Before she embarked on an editing and writing career, she spent many years working in a Toronto auction house as an antiques appraiser. Apart from curling up on the couch and drinking tea as she watches Hallmark movies, Caroline enjoys baking and exploring London, Ontario, the picturesque city she now calls home. Her website is www.carolinekaisereditor.com.
