A Veteran's Christmas

7/10 - festive Hallmark Christmas flick full of joy and familiar tropes and honors veterans across the world

What and amazing story. Even my hubby sat for over an hr to watch. Now this is a miracle! ;)

I'm a Hallmark junkie, and there have been some movies this year that 10 minutes in I was bored. Not this one. It totally grabbed me and kept me entertained. EXCEPT....the lead male. Throughout the whole movie I felt like I was watching him impersonating Tom Cruise acting in this movie. His mannerisms, the way he would angle his head and most of all the big grin and the laugh. It was comical at first, but got annoying as it went on. Am I the only one who saw this? LOL, anyway, it was a good movie. Predictable, of course...they all are. But I love them anyway!

Marine Veteran and dog lover finds herself stranded and gets a welcome from the town she can't even imagine. Both leads are great Sean Faris as Joe and Eloise Mumford as Grace.

Enjoyable, worth a watch. Have tissues for the ending!

Animal lovers, take your first step in the military Christmas genre with A Veteran's Christmas. It stars a woman who was honorably discharged and misses her K9 dog, who was not discharged along with her. It just breaks your heart when she looks at pictures of them together on her phone. She may get a healthy dose of the Christmas spirit when she gets stranded in a small town (yes, this is a Hallmark movie), but she still misses her dog terribly.

I loved Eloise Mumford's performance. She really seemed like a veteran. Her eyes were never fully happy, and it was very clear she'd seen the horrors of war. Her mannerisms were masculine and sometimes stilted, successfully putting across her awkwardness at civilian life. But besides Eloise's convincing performance, the rest of the cast isn't much to write home about. It feels like a movie that was made by a church group - which is fine, but it doesn't have the best production values or most interesting screenplay out there. There's also a heavy religious theme to the movie, which will appeal to some and not to others. For a simple movie with an unexpected tug on your heart (yes, I teared up at the end), check this one out. Grab your hankies for a double-feature with Holiday for Heroes.