L'Héritage de Noël

A break from the usual Christmas story. This sees Finn Conrad (David Hadyn-Jones) heading off to investigate why his late father left his inheritance to Willa Fairchild (Autumn Reeser), a home nurse and mother who had been caring for him. A variety of different characters, all bring different flavours to the mix and there are some tough moments mixed in with the anticipated Christmas uplift. Highly recommended.

Book illustrator Finn Conrad (David Haydn-Jones) has mixed emotions about the father who abandoned him when he was 10 years old as well as mixed emotions about the caregiver Willa Fairchild (Autumn Reeser) who inherited a $100 thousand dollar nest egg from his father's estate.

Finn and his sister Molly (Julia Benson) have a strong but unproven belief that the young and pretty caregiver Willa is a gold digger and that she somehow stole their own deserved inheritance from their estranged father's estate.

Finn is under a rigid 30 day timeline before the will can no longer legally be contested so he travels to the bed and breakfast that Willa and her young son Scout (Liam Hughes) are staying at over the Christmas and New Year period. The Bed and Breakfast lodge of Bramble House was a gracious gift to Willa and her cute as a buton son Scout donated by the deceased benefactor Mr. Conrad.

It is hard to hold back the tears as the story unfolds with a lot of emotional stories that all the main characters have to share as the Christmas day draws nearer. The owner of Bramble House, Mable Bramble, (Teryl Rothery) is getting on in years but is stubborn to the point that she makes it clear to all that love her, that she needs no ones help in running her bed and breakfast including that of an old and dear friend who wears his affections for Mable on his Santa sleeve.

This is a heartwarming story and my only negative comment is like in many of todays films, they portray the heroine Willa Fairchild as a divorcee taking care of her son on her own. Maybe this is the reality of todays society of many of a single parent raising their children on their own after a broken marriage, but it then becomes the accepted norm rather than the exceptance in the family relationship.

I give the film a decent 7 out of 10 rating.

This is based upon a book titled the same, which I haven't read yet but might do so next Christmas. They say that books are always better, so perhaps I need to check it out and put it on my list of goals since reading is one of my new year's goals and it would be perfect to read it before we watch it again next year. We all know that Hallmark repeats their previous year's movies unless it is Friday, Saturday or Sunday evening (premiere time) when they play their new movies (during the holiday season). But about the movie, it's worth a viewing and I might watch again next year as well.

A beautiful single mom gets the Christmas present of a lifetime in this lovely Hallmark movie, A Bramble House Christmas. Autumn Reeser stars as a caretaker whose recent patient left her $100,000 and a paid two-week Christmas vacation in his will. It's a dream come true for many reasons, but to his son, David Haydn-Jones, it appears to be a swindle. David travels to the bed and breakfast where Autumn and her son Liam Hughes are staying intent on contesting the will and finding out how she conned his father out of so much; however, as he gets to know her, his feelings soften.

One of the things I really love about this Hallmark is the lack of corniness. Sure, there are a few overly sweet moments, but overall, it's pretty nice drama. The characters take their time getting to know each other, rather than a love-at-first-sight or a bicker-till-we-fall-in-love romance. Autumn's character is a really nice, compassionate person, and she's also a good mother! It's very refreshing to see a romance like this one, where you can actually understand why the people fall for each other and think they'll work out past the closing credits.

There's really only one flaw in the entire movie, which, given the plot holes in other Hallmark movies that everyone overlooks in the spirit of the season, speaks pretty highly of it. Julia Benson's character as the disapproving sister doesn't start out as disapproving. In the beginning of the movie, she actually defends Autumn and tells her brother to drop his negative feelings. Without any explanation, she switches sides. Besides that, this is a really fantastic Hallmark. Check it out!

While settling his father's estate, Finn Conrad becomes suspicious as to why the man left a nurse $1000,000. Just before Christmas, Finn wants what to reclaim what he considers his family's money, going undercover to investigate the nurse who is know vacationing at a bed and breakfast which happened to be paid for by his dad.

I have become a huge David Haydn-Jones fan. I have seen him in a few Christmas movies now and he is one of the best.

What was nice about this story is "Nobody" in this film comes across as a villain but in reality there is one.

My problem with this film is that the deceased father abandoned his children and never saw them again.