To Have and to Holiday

To Have and to Holiday was just ok. It's basically a Christmas version of Father of the Bride (I really liked that movie). The movie started out pretty good. In flashbacks to when Celeste was younger you could see that her dad (Pastor Mark) wanted his old life back when his daughter was younger. Pastor Mark was unlikeable. For a man of the cloth he wasn't very nice. He spent 3/4 of the movie trying to sabotage his daughter's upcoming wedding. In Hallmark fashion he had a turnabout the last 15 minutes of the movie. The acting was good and the leads had chemistry. This won't be one that I would watch again.

While "To Have and to Holiday" is reminiscent of some older movies like "Father Of the Bride" and "Meet The Parents", this one was enjoyable because of the excellent cast who portrayed believable characters for a change. The relationship between the romantic leads Celeste (Madeleine Arthur) and Jason (Robert Bazzocchi) is believable. Madeleine Arthur is a very talented actress and was excellent in Hallmark's 2023 movie "3 Bed, 2 Bath, 1 Ghost". The actor Eric Close, who plays Celeste's pastor father, Mark, was also excellent in this. I remembered him from the intriguing 2002 mini series "Taken". Let's hope Hallmark can keep the remaining 2024 Christmas releases on par with this one!

While this movie touched on some common tropes (Christmas wedding, old boyfriend, big city job calling small town girl, parents giving boyfriend/fiancé a hard time, To Have and to Holiday made them its own, giving each component a fresh look.

When a young couple becomes engaged after only three months of knowing each other, he decides to go home for the holidays to meet her parents and spend the Christmas season in their small town.

Her father, a pastor in the town, has a hard time warming up to the young man, plus decides to put the young couple through his patented Marriage Boot Camp.

The movie is a stream of relationship building experiences between everyone involved, including HIS parents, who show up by surprise once they hear of the wedding.

It all works, and the movie is a delight. I'm sure this is one we can watch again. Check it out and enjoy. :-)

6.3 stars.

I have this nagging feeling that I'm supposed to like this movie. It's almost as if I'm not in the mood today. Should I hold off and watch it later? Anyways, I am getting through it slowly but surely. Slow and steady wins the race. Right now I'm not anticipating finishing it.

Pastor dad puts on the pressure, various gaslighting, bullying and guilt trip sessions later, the story improves somewhat, but not enough to sway my final opinion. This movie is not completely capturing my affections. I'd usually say something is missing, but in fact many somethings are missing.

There are good moments strew about, but insufficient to save it.

I continue plodding along...skipped to the last 15 minutes, it gets a lot better, too late to save it. Not my cup of tea.

Given my limited interest in Christmas movies in general, of course I was not familiar with the existence of this movie, prior to stumbling upon it by chance. And as I was sitting through a month of sappy Christmas movies this year, I opted to add it to the list of movies to watch.

The storyline in the movie sort of felt like a "Meet the Parents" or "Father of the Bride" movie rip-off, just dressed up in a neat and shiny Christmas outfit. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it was a bad movie, because I found it to actually be enjoyable and a fun watch. So writers Grant Levy and Dominik Rothbard managed to churn out something that proved entertaining. And it was nice to have a Christmas movie that deviated from the archetypical over-the-top-sappy Christmas movies out there; yeah, I'm looking at you Hallmark.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with actor Eric Close, and he really spruced up the movie as Mark Palmer, the father and pastor out to see his daughter not rush into a marriage. I can't claim that I was particularly impressed with leading actress Madeleine Arthur, sure she acted okay, but she just didn't have that particular charisma that many leading actresses have in sappy Christmas movies.

The movie is definitely not a Christmas classic for me. In fact, I will never return to watch it a second time. But it was an enjoyable enough watch the first time around.

I am sure that fans of the sappy Christmas movies will enjoy this movie, and thus should give it a chance.

My rating of director Stacey N. Harding's 2024 movie "To Have and to Holiday" lands on a six out of ten stars.