Confessions of a Christmas Letter

Due to the advent of social media, the tradition of writing a family Christmas newsletter has become old-fashioned, but not in the town of Holly Hills, where the best Christmas letters are honored on the wall of fame at the post office.

Settie (Angela Kinsey) struggles with writing her family newsletter each year while trying to compete with her neighbor, the villainess Sue (Colleen Wheeler). Sue is a straight villain through this entire movie which is a rare thing for a Hallmark movie. Typically at the end of the movie, the villain's icy heart is melted, but nope, she's a straight up baddie.

Settie hires an author named Juan (Alec Santos) to write her Christmas letter, offering him a two week stay in Connecticut at their house and the chance to interact with the family throughout the holiday holiday season. Juan, suffering from writer's block, accepts, and gets a chance to learn the wacky family and meet their single daughter Lily (Lillian Doucet).

The first 15 minutes of this movie was simply awful. It felt like we were dropped into a scenario that we didn't understand and I actually had to rewind and start over to make sure I didn't miss an explanation, but the movie surprised me and got better over time. When the movie concluded I felt some actual emotions towards the outcome as Settie reads from the aforementioned Christmas letter.

The love story was definitely the B storyline, taking a backseat to the family learning to love their intricate quirks and battling the evil woman next door. Dang Sue!

Funny scene: There's a scene where grandma carries a tray of fully engulfed cinnamon rolls to the dining room table and serves them like they were not on fire seconds ago. That takes guts.

Measuring Christmas magic: Yes, we had Christmas magic and the sets were decorated very well for the holiday. Although I would question the safety of having fully lit garlands covering the kitchen cupboards, and every headboard in the house.

Cast kudos: Juan for the win.

Alternate movie titles: This is tough because Confessions of a Christmas Letter is actually probably the best title of any Hallmark movie so far this year. So I'll give one option: The Christmas Letter Wall of Fame.

I thought that the movie would get better as it went a long but after about half an hour I couldn't finish. The characters were so over the top and so unrealistic and child like it was stupid. Not really anything good to say about the movie and sadly I cant say anything about the actors themselves due to the character they were playing took the light off their abilities. Hallmark should start looking at much better scripts and ask themselves is this a movie that is worth watching or is it a movie people will be turning the channel after realizing it is ridicules and is an embarrassment for everyone involved.

I confess I have nearly stopped writing TV movies reviews. They seem to get dumber every year: are scriptwriters running out of ideas? Hallmark Christmas movies, this year, seem to have engaged the perilous slope of the farce. Almost all, so far. Somebody there must be confusing the concept of intimate joy with epidermic silliness. This one is barely saved by the final attempt to give it a more serious, constructive moral. Unfortunately, the basis for the plot is preposterous and idiotic, the acting is amateurish and frantic, the gags are juvenile at best, all through the movie. I wonder if at Hallmark all goes to the direction of a farce because they have lost the ability to take Christmas seriously. The results are that most of their dramas are a laugh and their comedies make me cry.

4.9 stars.

I don't understand what is going on here. It's the story of a middle aged woman who has failed to win a Christmas letter contest for many years. She hires a famous novelist to write it for her. Already, you can see a debacle in the workings.

Her family is in on the scheme, relatives and friends are visiting their home over the holidays. This writer she hires comes from Puerto Rico. He has what appears to be a gay father or grandfather with a gay lover living with him there. I am not sure if they are gay, but they act like it. I'm just curious about that part.

The matriarch's son is gay and married, then we are introduced to strange and competitive neighbors and friends and the rest of the story is a cacophonous smattering of activities and planning and running in circles during the holidays.

Failed romance, no drama, no comedy. It's a shame when a film attempts to resemble classics like 'National Lampoon...' and nobody can do it.

I was ready to bail on this within the first half hour but I was hoping it would get better. The premise was so ridiculous that I think it was someone's middle school writing assignment. Who gets all worked up about a Christmas letter competition that they would hire a novelist to travel from Puerto Rico to Connecticut to ghost write for them. The actors did the best they good with the cheesy script. The onesies were a hoot. But does anyone really wear them every day?

There were a few sweet moments but on the whole the acting was way over the top. I did manage to watch to the end, mostly because of Alec Santos. I have not seen him before but hopefully Hallmark will use him again. The Uncles were great also. I'm usually very generous with my ratings. I don't expect a masterpiece in this genre but this was just plain awful. I give it four stars just because it is Christmas, the season of giving.