Le Noël de mes rêves

Yes, it's a little by the book in terms of the Hallmark formula, but I really liked this film, and it's always great to see Danica Mckellar.

With a nice storyline and some sweet moments, this was enjoyable and romantic enough to pass a cold night.

Lovely.

Christina (Danica McKellar) is the top manager in a midsize town for a department store called McDougalls. Christmas is approaching and this pretty exec is a bit stressed. For one, she has to develop their annual Xmas window display but has been unable to hatch a good idea. Then, she gets word that the chain store's founder, Victoria (Deirdre Hall) is coming to look things over. Ouch. Thank the Lord for her bright and cheery assistant, Holly (Christine Lee). Normally a workaholic, Christina has no time for a personal life. As Victoria is arriving, Chrissy has an unfortunate accident with a can of falling white paint. The culprit, single dad Kurt (David Haydn-Jones) has been a great worker and instantly apologizes. But, Christina is miffed. When Henry, the custodial manager, decides to let Kurt go, she does nothing to save Kurt's job. This is not the Christmas spirit at all! Two other matters occur at once. Victoria announces that they are seeking a head honcho for a new store in Paris. A Francophile, Christina soon yearns for this job. But, first, she has to deal with an unhappy six year old customer, Cooper (Christian Convery) who gets to Santa's throne a few minutes too late. What's the little boy's wish? To make his Dad happy this holiday season! Christina promises Cooper that she will relay the message to Santa but, ho ho ho, it turns out Cooper's father is the fired Kurt! By hook or by crook, Cooper arranges meetings for Christina and Kurt, for the little lad is smitten with the pretty manager himself. Can love snow down on a Christmas match? But, wait, what about Chrissy's Paris hopes? This lovely film is a new entry in the glorious Hallmark repertoire of Holiday movies. Very welcome it is! McKellar and Haydn-Jones make good love vibrations, being talented and attractive, while Convery is simply a doll. Deirdre Hall never ages and is also very fine as the kind but demanding boss. Other wishes fulfilled are nice sets, costumes, a sweet script and a sure direction. How many fans are there for Hallmark romantic movies? It must be in the billions by now and they will like this one, too!

Danica McKellar stars as the manager of a large department store trying to come up with the 25th annual Christmas display just twelve days before Christmas. She's also in the running to manage the new store in Paris, her dream city. She tasks a painter and local artist to help with the display and begins falling for him and his young son. Cute movie but with a theme that's been done one too many times.

Christina, the manager of McDougal's flagship department store, is determined to land the manager position for their new Paris location. She sets out to impress Victoria, the store's owner, by creating the best holiday display in McDougal's history. However on the day she is to meet Victoria the imperatively dressed Christina gets paint spilled on her by a worker in the department store that she manages. He gets abruptly fired. However later on their paths cross again and Victoria ends up needing this man she just fired to help her with a Christmas window display. If this display rocks upper management she then will get to live her dream a manage a store in Paris.

Now this film is good. My major complaint is that the film shows that women are forced between "Career and Family". Many successful women in the past 50 years have managed to do both. This film however makes it look like that "If you don't have a family you are never happy". For once I would like to see a Christmas movie where the woman does choose a career but it also happy with that choice. Trust me that would make a great Christmas film!

I like this film, because I have spent so many years working in retail that it is enough to make you forget what Christmas is all about, so I can understand Danica Mckellar's character. However, I don't really rate her as an actress, there is something about her that is comedic, that takes away from the more straight acted element of the film. David Haydn Jones is gorgeous and I would let him paint me any day and he plays his part well too, but the star of this film is Christian Convery who plays the little boy, Cooper. He is absolutely adorable.

The main premise of the story, creating a Christmas display in less than two weeks is highly impractical and very unlikely, but I suppose it does it's work here as part of the magic of Christmas and a way to bring two people together, but I think I would have liked to have seen them studying the past a bit more to really make me understand why the MacDougall's history was so important.

Also, if Holly, the Assistant Manager can't cope with the Manager taking an afternoon off, what does she do when she's on holiday? Should she really be left alone to run the store?

Also, a lot of the props are just wrong, this is something that a lot of these films need to work on and once again they have the crappiest Christmas tree, that's already half dead.

It has a nice quota of Christmas and I'm a sucker for a love story, so it still wins for me.