Le Bonheur au pied du sapin

A woman in advertising finds herself unemployed and dumped on the same day. She ends up working on her family own Christmas Tree Lot after her dad can't run it and her mom must take care of him. However she has bad memories of the lot and really doesn't want to be there.

At the same time she is working the lot she looking for a new job. She also meets a man who is seems to be buying lots of trees.

This is AN ABOVE AVERAGE HALLMARK MOVIE. It is heartwarming. Its also not as cliche ridden as most of there films tend to be.

Elise (Sarah Lancaster) grew up with her family's business of selling Christmas trees. So now she's anti-Christmas. Not sure I understand that part of the plot. My dad was a carpenter and I don't hate hammers. Anyway, when Elise's father breaks his foot, she agrees to help out with the business. She's not a happy camper already because she lost her job and was dumped by her boyfriend. So now she has to do her least favorite thing in the world and a struggle with a grinchy CEO out to get rid of her family's Christmas tree lot doesn't help matters. At least she meets a cute guy (Eric Johnson). Soon she's feeling the holiday spirit in spite of herself.

Sarah Lancaster is very pretty and charming. Her smile lights up the screen. She does a lot for the part, which isn't written as very likable in the earliest scenes of the movie. Derek McGrath and Lynne Griffin are her perfect parents. Greg Calderone is the likable cousin that helps her run the lot. It was nice to see Eric Johnson. I remember him from the first season of Smallville way back when. He's got a good chemistry with Sarah. Their first date was pretty cute. Colin Mochrie is great as the Scrooge-like villain who isn't as bad as he seems. This is an upbeat and surprisingly funny TV movie. There are many other likable characters throughout, such as the happy married couple she meets or the little kids, one of whom says "Maybe you have relationship issues." Seasonal romcoms are pretty much my favorite and this one's good. It's nothing challenging but that's okay with me. It's all about the smiles and this one gives them.

Sarah Lancaster (as Elise) was the main character, she was in every scene and it was an enjoyable movie. The movie kept me fairly engaged the whole time. My wife did not enjoy the movie as much, but she was tired and to get the full value of the movie you had to stay alert. The best part of the movie was the story of how a couple valued their ornaments which were gotten at gift shops and how they represented times in their relationship. Elise liked this and when she received one such ornament at the end- it was perfect. I enjoyed seeing Derek McGrath as Elise dad (Dr Hebert on DOC) and loved how he would comment when Elise and her mom would talk about him like he wasn't there. Overall they did a good job and the story is taking place in New York City.

HAPPY Holidays. Tis the season to be JOLLY. It's the most WONDERFUL time of the year. Really? Fully the first 1/3rd of this movie (commercial TV screen time 41 minutes) was a total downer. One bad thing after another. Pile on Elise. And there was more of it later in the movie.

Meanwhile, it really didn't seem like Elise and Darren spent much time together, and certainly not much alone time. Even then I would say the chemistry was just average. A lot of the screen time was either the unhappy corporate world, or grumpy Gary, or the tree lot.

Sarah Lancaster has a nice smile that she showed off plenty, but beyond that, she wasn't charismatic or energetic. Eric Johnson did the best he could with the screen time he had.

My point is this. It's clearly a Christmas movie and a romance one also. So it would be nice if the bulk of the movie was one or both, with a heavy dose leaning toward the romance side. That was not even close to how it worked out.

There is a really sweet scene when Elise delivers the tree to the pregnant couple. The couple describes their happiest Christmas moments and it definitely lightens things up. I found it to be the best scene in the movie.

Last year, Hallmark presented a new Christmas movie with a father selling Christmas trees on a NYC sidewalk...and he had a disgruntled son that ran away. I don't think that movie could have been made any worse! Watching it once was more than enough!...........With that awful movie and the increasing numbers of awful Christmas movies Hallmark has been presenting between last year and this year, (2014) "Fir Crazy" surfaced to be at least "likeable.".......It did not have anything enticing or special or magical. But with its 2 "Bah, humbug" characters, it remained focused on Christmas with a nice plot that flowed.....None of the players were annoying.......No blaring, annoying "background" music and/or singing to overwhelm the players' dialogue (as Hallmark Christmas movies are notorious for having). And I have watched this movie several times.