Holiday in Santa Fe

Gia, Mario's daughter steals the show. Nice to see family emphasized. My son-in-law is Salvadorian and has 5 sisters. They took care of him during the Salvadorian civil war. I loved this movie and recommend it to anyone with family. I originally watched it to see Mario Lopez. I'm glad I did.

The film did not them capture the true culture and traditions of Christmas in New Mexico. Not one reference to posole, red or green chile, biscochitos, or farolitos. The lowest point suggesting that tossing hams is traditional in Santa Fe. Give me a break!

True New Mexico food, art, and culture was represented with Mexican traditions, which are not prevalent in New Mexico. The movie only added confusion and assumptions to those outside New Mexico. Obviously, the writers and producers applied stereotypes that caused the audiences not to learn about the true New Mexican culture.

Everything about Santa Fe culture is massively traditional here. We do make and eat a lot of tamales, that is true. But we do not eat mole or chile verde often. We are known for our unique chile and it is far different than mole or chile verde, where as chile verde is tomatillo based and mole is a complex sauce, our red and green chile, as its called, is a simple sauce of our unique pepper and almost nothing else, unlike mole which is up to 26+ ingredients. What a missed opportunity to order something Christmas and then brag to the girl about how good the chile is.

During Christmas in Santa Fe we make and eat biscochitos, a very special spiced shortbread cookie. We eat enchiladas. We eat chips and salsa. I have never seen a pepper eating contest on the plaza. If we had a winter fest it would be called winter "fiesta". We do not toss ham. We eat our ham with our families and red chile.

New Mexico truly does have a unique dialect that is interwoven with Spanish but not at all in the way it is portrayed in the film.

We are speak of our founding date as 1598, when Don Juan Oñate arrived here.

They kept saying how special it is here for Christmas but missed the mark on everything. Not one mention of farolitos, luinarias. No talk of posadas or the numerous farolito walks

A bunch of the little things they showed are Mexican like the papel picado, the corn husk flowers, the milagro hearts. Not even a single retablo or bulto was shown

They didn't even light the Christmas lights on the plaza.

Mario Lopez didn't even have a Zia tattoo on his neck/hand.

Empanadas are not really a staple of our cuisine as they lead us to believe. Maybe enchiladas would have been a better choice but there was ZERO mention of an enchilada at all. Billy the Kid was NOT jailed in Tia Sophias. The jail was actually where Collected Works is now at Galisteo and Water Street. Do we really have multiple donkey statues around that people steal the tails off of? I never knew that. I also never knew we had a sherif that wore a green and tan suit. (hint: we don't)

We do not have an antique Christmas truck that drives around and hand out presents. We have awesome low riders do that. Unrelated to Santa Fe, when the sister is making a glass ornament you see her "finish" without taking the piece off the pole and putting it in the annealer. Eye roll!! Come on! Who goes on a date at Rockin Rollers? The scorpion pepper is from Trinidad.

When is the last time you've been in Santa Fe?... Well, neighbor, it's been too long! This movie has everything it takes for a pleasant evening in front of the screen. Values of family and tradition, a beautiful heroine, Mario Lopez, always an engaging presence, and ...Santa Fe. I may be biased, as this destination brings back so many wonderful memories. Must grant the production is not perfect. Obviously, it was not filmed at the end of December: it gets pretty cold there! The main theme is quite standard and predictable. Yet, isn't that, generally, the case for such kind of movies? The good thing is that the cast seems appropriately chosen and and the yarn unravels smoothly, with plenty of warm and charming moments. In my view, definitely a keeper.

None of the Hallmark/Lifetime or related movies are good but they're usually okay enough to put on in the background and not feel too offended by. I mean they are all the same, formulaic, and predictable. This one was atrocious, though. The acting is so contrived, the story makes no sense, and the pandering to what the creators think is New Mexico culture was just awful. As some other reviewers suggest, these people really know nothing about New Mexico. The bigger concern I have, though, is they know nothing about movies and telling a story. I can usually at least find something entertaining- this was painful!