O Little Christmas Market

The guys kick things off with a little history lesson on Hallmark's Christmas in July—from its beginnings with a single weekend in 2012 and how it evolved, to the very first original July Christmas movie in 2015 (yes, it's a Lacey Chabert classic), where the event stands today, and the highest-rated Christmas in July originals of all time.

Then it's on to Christmas in July 2026 – Week 2 as Kat Barrell (The Christmas Baby) and Stephen Huszar (Melt My Heart This Christmas) star in O Little Christmas Market. The script feels like a classic Hallmark movie from a decade ago—formulaic? Sure. Creative? Absolutely.

This movie has a little bit of everything: miniature Christmas displays, shipping containers, a lonely Christmas tree in a train station, a charming holiday market... and, naturally, developers threatening to tear it all down.

And, of course, we ask the important questions. Rich can't figure out why Grayson doesn't hop the next train home—or where he found that tuxedo in town. Meanwhile, Rene investigates the cost of moving shipping containers and isn't afraid to question Zoey's wardrobe choices.

As always, we cover:

• Behind-the-scenes movie fun facts.
 • Our favorite moments.
 • Scenes we’d rewrite.
 • The best supporting characters.
 • “Are We Sure?” — our ultimate Hallmark logic check.
 • Will Grayson and Olivia last as a couple?
 • The Mistletoe Meter – How good of a final kiss did Olivia and Grayson give us? We’ll give it a letter grade.
 • Who (or what) truly won the movie.
 • We rate the film and talk about what movie is coming up next!

For the love of Hallmark!

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Email: ForeverHallmarkChristmas@gmail.com

*** Not affiliated with Hallmark Media. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello everyone. Welcome to Forever Hallmark Christmas Podcast. We are a movie review podcast where we talk about one thing and one thing only. That is Hallmark Christmas movies. My name is Renee, and I'm joined as always by my friend and co-host Rich.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

How are you? I'm doing good, Renee. Christmas in July. Uh we uh just got our second uh July movie here, so yeah, really excited. Uh I like to think this is the actually the first new Christmas movie had, because last week we know that was a a movie that was actually originally on Hulu two years ago, just new to the Hallmark channel. But this is kind of the real first new original Hallmark movie that we've we've had. So yeah, pretty excited. And Ray, since this is the uh the first real new original Hallmark movie for Christmas in July, uh I I started doing a little research about the history of Hallmark in July, and I and I really couldn't find uh a heck of a lot. So I started doing a little digging on my own and kind of came up with a little timeline as to what Hallmark Christmas in July is all about, when it started, and and some other stuff. And basically it started back in 2012, and that's when Hallmark did a single holiday weekend marathon of Christmas movies. And when they looked at the ratings, they realized that weekend had 55% higher ratings than the previous year. So they said, hey, we might be onto something here. 2013, they added a few more Christmas movies to the calendar, and by 2014, uh, they made Christmas in July a week-long event, so an entire week of Christmas movies. 2015, that was the first year that Hallmark gave us an original Christmas movie in July, and it was actually a Lacey movie called Family for Christmas, which 2015 obviously very early uh in her Hallmark career. But Christmas in July really took off in the early 2000s. That's when it became the entire month of July with movie marathons, uh, original Christmas movies, behind the scenes programming, and a lot of promotions to that year's countdown to Christmas. And of course, it's been a thing ever since. Uh obviously plenty of uh uh uh Christmas and July movies, originals, but if you're wondering what are the two highest rated uh Christmas and July movies since Hallmark has started doing the event, there are two tied uh for first place with a seven-point run rating. It's Take Me Back for Christmas, a Christmas in July movie in 2023, and Crashing Through the Snow, a movie we reviewed maybe, I don't know, about six weeks ago. That was 2021. Both of them have a 7.1 rating, tied for 26 all-time among amongst uh all the Hallmark Christmas movies since uh since 2000. So uh yeah, just a little bit of history about Christmas in July and how it came to be and what it's all about. That's cool info.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

I had no idea you know how long ago they started. I I came to watching Hallmark later, so they were already doing that by the time I became a watcher. That's cool.

unknown 2:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Uh so this week we are reviewing uh the movie that premiered last night that we record on Sunday. It's on Saturday, July 11th. It's Oh Little Christmas Market, starring uh Kat Burrell as Olivia and Steven Huzzar as Grayson, as Grayson, excuse me. And uh they've done quite a few movies. Uh Cat Burrell was in The Good Witch, uh Godwing Christmas, Miracle of Love, quite a few movies, and Stephen Huzzar as well, who has great hair, by the way. Like if you haven't if you don't know who he is, once you see him, you're gonna be amazed by how great his hair is. Great hair, absolutely. He's done a ton of movies. He's known for uh Time for Us to Come Home for Christmas, a few Ruby Herring mysteries on the Jane mysteries. He's very, very well-known guy. Um, the supporting cast was kind of an interesting crew, not uh Paula Boudreau as Lenore. Uh she played Olivia's mom. She's in Take Me Back for Christmas, uh, Autumn at Apple Hill. She was also in The Good Witch. Uh she played Dottie, which was like this just a s if you I know you haven't seen uh The Good Witch, but she was such a snobby, conceited, stuck up lady in that show. She was great. I loved her in that. And uh Jonathan Langdon as Sean, uh known for other roles outside of Harmuk, Hallmark, and uh Anna Pornella Zoe, who really has a very um quite a funny character in this movie. I was not familiar with her prior to this, but she's done uh the Great Canadian Baking Show, which I've seen some of the great uh British baking show, but I didn't even know there was a Canadian one, so I'll have to check that out. She's a scene stealer for sure. Uh this was directed by Mar, excuse me, by Mars Horudiski. Uh he's known for Working Moms, Murdoch Mysteries, and Pretty Hard Cases. I haven't seen any of those, but uh I'll have to check those out. And this was written by Natasha Barone and Ryan Peckingpa. Uh Natasha wrote uh non-Hallmark movies, but she wrote Christmas in the Pines, You May Be You May Kiss the Bridesmaid, Christmas with the Nightlies. And Ryan wrote a 90s Christmas uh back in 2024. Otherwise, he does I didn't find much notable work for him, but I hope to see more of him as well. Our FHC log line this week is a struggling artist teams up with the architect threatening her beloved Christmas market, only to discover that saving the town's holiday tradition may also mean redesigning her plans for love. Uh as of yesterday, there was no IMDB rating. I don't know if there was one this morning. I didn't check. We're recording fairly early today. But uh we'll see what that comes up to later. And now that we're here, let's hear some fun facts from Rich.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Yeah, we've been able to find a few. Uh thanks to uh the executive producer, Christopher Giroux. He actually gave us uh uh a few fun facts about this movie to shot him my way. Uh I also heard him on a podcast with our friends Gary and Amy from Poor the Wine is rom com time. Uh Stephen Huzar and Kat Burrell have been doing some interviews before the movie film, so I was able to get a little bit of stuff as well. But basically, the original title for this film was Miniature Christmas, not O Little Christmas Market. I like O Little Christmas Market better. Um, all of the miniature displays and figures uh in the film were custom made for the movie, and they were created by a local company there in Canada called the Little Dollhouse Company. So I always like to give a shout out to local companies. Uh the miniature selves themselves, uh miniature sets themselves were designed and built by Sarah Lang, who was the production designer on this movie. And she'll also serve as the production designer on Snowbound for the Holidays, which we'll review next week, uh the next Christmas and July movie. So she would was busy doing these Christmas and July films. Uh the film was shot entirely in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, uh, which made it a real nice backdrop for kind of the Christmas market world. And it was shot in late November and early December, and it was cold. Stephen Huzzar said it was around 30, um, excuse me, minus 30 degrees Celsius for the final shoot, which putting that for Fahrenheit, uh minus 22. So that's uh that's a chilly day. Yeah. So it was cold, and I I think that's going to be one of my likes that I have is I you could tell that it was cold. Uh and speaking of Stephen Huzzar, who played Grayson, uh, his father in real life was an architect. So that drew him to the role and the character. So yeah, those are just a few fun facts about this one.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

It's interesting. You mentioned the cold. Uh that's one of the things I I made a note of as well. Yeah. Uh thank you for those fun facts. Those are always great. So, what are your overall thoughts on this movie?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Okay, first of all, much, much better than last week's film. I'm I'm glad we got a uh Christmas in July, a Hallmark original here. Uh definitely felt like more of a Hallmark movie. And it felt like an old throwback Hallmark movie. Um, very formulaic. Uh, you know, the big bad developer is in to buy something that's going to affect the town in a negative way. Um, but I do think even though it was formulaic, we had two pretty good leads here with fairly good chemistry. Uh I think the storyline itself was a bit soft, but I think there's pretty good dialogue, and that can that can help out a lot. For the most part, we found it a pretty easy watch. I think those throwback hallmark movies that are formulaic, you know, are there for a reason. Uh they are easy watching, don't have to think too hard, feel good. Yeah, those are my overall thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

It's funny because we don't talk about the movies uh before we, you know, after we see them. We don't talk about them before we do the podcast. Nope, we we like to keep it real and come out natural. So my first sentence is it was a very easy watch, very straightforward and formulaic. They had some funny moments. Uh, the friendship between Olivia and Zoe was very cute, very lovely. In appearance, I felt the pairing of Olivia and Grayson was not what I would ideally picture. Two people like a couple would look like. But you know, life is not always as we picture it. And uh Olivia was such a likable character. I enjoyed I enjoyed the film. It was it was cute. What are some things uh you really liked?

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yeah, so for the first thing that really caught my eye was the train station there in Philadelphia, or the whatever the set set is Philadelphia there. Um it beautiful decorations and even the artwork around there. Uh that's might maybe the nicest train station I've ever seen. Uh, I like to think it, I'm probably guessing it actually wasn't a train station. They used something else to uh to cover as a train station, but it was beautiful inside. We we already mentioned the weather. I mean, you could tell that snow was real when it was coming down. Uh, they were wearing beanies, it was windy in some scenes. You could see the breath coming out of their mouths. I mean, it looked cold and it was cold. And I think that weather gave a little bit more of an authentic feel to a Christmas movie. Um, I liked the tree at the train station playing both the role where they met. And then basically by the end of the movie, the tree came full circles where they kind of reconnected there uh at the train station in Philadelphia. I thought that was a very nice little touch. And while I thought the story was a bit soft and very formulaic, I did like the miniature displays and this shipping container angle to the movie. I think that added some uniqueness. And those are both real things. Um, there are people that do create miniature displays, and I started looking up kind of shipping container villages and stuff like that, and that's a real thing. I mean, we actually have them here where we live in Orange County, California, Renee. And there's some others up in Long Beach. There's a big one up in Washington State, uh, a huge one in St. John, uh New Brunswick, Canada. So yeah, that that's a real thing. So I think that added some uniqueness to the movie, having both the miniature displays and the shipping container storylines.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Yeah, I've seen people like double stack them and they make a two-story shipping container home. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Yeah, like you, uh, I like the miniature sets. I thought they were really cool. Right away, the tone of the movie, I loved how it set the tone. Had Christmas music going, so many decorations. I felt the Christmas spirit and theme. Right away, the decorations were everywhere. Excuse me. So I thought that was just such an awesome start. It was one of the more enjoyable meet cute moments for me. Uh between them meeting at the train station, total chemistry between them, cute little banter back and forth. Like I said earlier, Zoe was super quirky and funny and very supportive of Olivia. Um, I like that. Um, it looked like like as you said as well, it looked like it was when they were in the market, it looked like it was very cold there to me. I said, Yeah, I like that. I didn't realize when it was filmed, I didn't quite get the chance to look that up, but uh it looked cold, which makes it much more realistic looking than some of the scenes we might have seen in last week's movie. We're not gonna beat up on it too much, but uh Yeah. And I liked a lot uh when Olivia takes Grayson around the market and makes him buy something from every vendor, you know, she's making him and she's making them have conversations uh with them and all that. So I thought that was kind of a neat little way to say, hey, these are real people that you're coming here to develop on, you know, and it gives them a little bit of a perspective. And one last little thing is uh Grayson and Olivia's conversation in their workshop where they both kind of encourage each other to you know follow their dreams. That's a nice conversation between the two of them, not even in a non-romantic way, just as two people going through life. I I I I like that a lot. I always like a good conversation, as you know. Uh let's go to the part where you excel at, I think. Things we'd fix in a rewrite.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Yeah, nothing nothing too major, but a couple things that caught my eye that I think could have been improved a little bit. And I've I've said this one before, you'll hear rom-com writers, Hallmark writers. Don't let your your two lead couples cozy up to each other too fast. And I do think they cozyed up pretty fast in this movie. They had a little, you know, not liking each other there in the second act of the movie. And when I say second act, you know, Hallmark movies, for those of you who don't know, are written in nine acts. So basically eight commercial breaks in between each of those nine acts. And by the second act, which is about, you know, 20 minutes in, that's where they had the, you know, he'd showed up and she found out that he was kind of, you know, gonna maybe buy their plot of land there and the market would be gone. But then quickly by the third act, they're be they're best friends again, it seemed like. So I think they cosied it up a little too fast, maybe giving me one more act of them, having a little bit of tension between them. One thing I I was confused about, and I think could have used a little explanation, was Grayson and his dad's company and what they really did. Are they architects or kind of land developers? Because an architect wouldn't be out there buying plots of land and stuff. Uh, that would be kind of a developer's job. Now, if the dad's a developer and Grayson's kind of the lead architect behind it all, then I get it. But they didn't really explain that. I think that's something could use a little of explaining, uh, maybe in that first scene where Grayson uh is in his dad's office and they're chatting and he's looking at Grayson's sketches. So that's something I would have liked to have seen explained. And then the last thing, I wanted more of the market itself. We I mean we had a lot of it in the first 30 minutes, but that last hour and a half, or you know, we didn't have uh as much. I wanted more of the market. It's called Oh Little Christmas Market. I could use a little bit more of the market.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Yeah, I wanted to see.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

And those are the those are yeah, those are my fury rights.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Yeah, I wanted to see more food stuff, right? You know, when the guy opened it. What you want you you wanted some fun dozels like we had last week. I only had a couple things, you know. The main one for me was like the vendors themselves wouldn't be able to pay the the the charges for moving a shipping container. I I looked this up. Within about 50 miles, it's about 500 bucks to $1,200 to move a shipping container. That's pretty cheap. I you know, that's the putting it on once it's on a trailer just to get get it hauled there. And whatever you gotta pay, you know, you gotta pay the union fees for the guy to get the crane and move the trailer onto the on move the container onto the trailer, you know, that's another couple hundred bucks. I didn't get why these vendors couldn't come up with the cash or put it on a credit card. You know, just each person handles their own container. That made no sense to me. And I kind of get that this was needed in the in the in the movie in the movie. But Grayson leaving without saying goodbye to her, even if he sent a text message or left a message like, oh, I have to go, something came up, I had to do this other business deal. You know, he just took off without saying bye to her after their after their connection. And you know, when was he gonna find out if the deal went through? That was that whole part just seemed ambiguous and crazy to me. Really, I did not understand that in the story. And the other thing, it's not really a uh a rewrite, but I have to say, for the most part of the movie, I did not like Zoe's turtlenecks. I get it, it was cold, so it was like coming up halfway up her face most of the time. But as a non-turtleneck guy, you know that I don't like turtlenecks. I just it was not flattering for her, and so that was like a little just sort of a you know a costume designer thing. But if it was called, you know, fashion be be darned, you know, you you're gonna dress up and stay warm. And also pretty simple rewrites from me. Um, what's your favorite moment?

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Well, it's one that you actually already called out. It's when Olivia was making Grayson go from vendor to vendor at the market buying all kinds of stuff, and it kept piling up in his arms, and he's he's carrying it until basically it's it's almost so high that he can hardly see anymore. Uh, I really like that. Obviously, I like the Christmas market scenes, and I thought that was just a funny thing, him getting honey and different ornaments and whatever fudge. Uh, just she was making him kind of go vendor to vendor uh in a way to kind of see what the market's all about. And I I think it just kind of added a really nice kind of comedic moment to the movie. It was really nicely shot. So I'm gonna go with that as my favorite moment. One you already called out, but that was mine.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Yeah, that was pretty close to being my favorite moment. Uh, but for me, it's when she comes to the party in the sparkling red dress, and he says, Oh, you look whatever she said, like you look wonderful, or whatever he said. And she fumbles her words, talking back to him, because she's not a fancy lady, she's beautiful. That was cute, that she's just a down-to-earth kind of girl. And I like that she asked him to dance, just a nice move. Like, and then they dance. And uh the best part for me was the the way she looked at him during the dance. I I was surprised, surprised we didn't get a first kiss there. Because her the way she looked at him is like it felt like there was a real attraction between them, and it expressed their burgeoning love. But just that look she gave him is my absolute favorite moment because it just seems so real. It was just lovely for me to watch. I really enjoyed that. And I wondered if you know, I guess it goes to the they probably have real off-screen chemistry as well, I'm sure. Love that moment. Who's your best supporting character who deserved more screen time?

SPEAKER_01 17:13

I have a feeling you and I usually, you know, 90% of the time we don't pick the same one. I have a feeling we might pick the same one on this one. We'll see. But I'm going with Zoe, uh played by Ann Pornell. She was just uh a little bit sassy, but she was always to the point. She wasn't gonna put up with any any BS. She was just uh, you know, looking out for Olivia. I loved how she always called him train station guy, uh, with Olivia and Grace in there. I I thought she was just a really good uh uh supporting character, and I could have used a little bit more of Zoe.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

I thought of Zoe, but I thought, you know what? That's that's a that's uh that's slow pitch baseball, right? Softball. Like that's an easy one. So I went with Lenore, the mother, because she had some good dialogue. I would have liked another scene where she talks about how she carried on after her husband passed and running the BNB, just to get a little bit more history of her struggle and her going forward. Uh I just thought she played her role so well, but Zoe's a great choice. I mean, that was that was to me the obvious choice, but she got plenty of screen time. She did get a lot of screen time, so uh that's why I went with Lenora, the mother. She's great. Plus, I I have a fondness for her from um The Good Witch. So what are our Are We Sure moments?

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Yeah, I have a couple here. The the biggest one is are we sure that Grayson would have stayed in town when Archie gave Olivia kind of you know the Christmas Eve deadline to come up with a plan? I mean, nobody wants Grayson in this town. He's basically everybody's hating on the guy. He's gonna destroy their Christmas market, but he decides, yeah, I'm gonna stay, even though nobody wants me. No, uh, dude, I would have gotten on a train, headed back to Pennsylvania, and said, I'll be back on Christmas Eve uh when you guys make your decision. But I'm I'm not staying here when nobody wants me here. That was my biggest uh are we sure is are we sure that Grayson really would have stayed? And uh my other are we sure is uh Grayson has this pretty awesome tuxedo at the ball. Are we sure that Grayson's gonna be able to find uh find that tuxedo in that small little town there for ball? Where's this guy coming up with? He's not gonna go into like a local, you know, tuxedo rental store and get that thing. So where's are we sure that Grayson can find that tuxedo uh in that town? Those are my couple army shures.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

You know, I couldn't quite get a a feel for the size of the actual size of the town. Yeah, it was hard. Yeah, that was a tough one. So for me, it was like the right away in the train station in the beginning, all there was so many decorations, all the trees were decorated except for one. And I was sure like there would be a box with decorations for an undecorated tree at the train station that is already massively decorated. You know, that I thought that was crazy. Like, okay, I get it, it was it's a nice part of the scene, but like one, like they just forgot one Christmas tree. Okay. And then when the train's leaving, uh, she wouldn't just run over and you know, he didn't how far away could he have gotten just walking away, talking on the phone? She wouldn't just run over and go, Hey, my train's leaving, you know, it was nice to have met you or whatever. She left a precarious note, and somehow that note was still there. I don't know, like a week later. And I guess no one sweeps or does anything there. I just thought that was kind of funny. And my last, are we sure is can someone make a living making miniatures? I mean, maybe making them and having them like if she had uh kind of what she ended up doing at the end is like having a mini supply store in town with uh with uh you know helping people to make these and train showing people a place where the community can go and learn. And then maybe if she had an online presence, uh selling, you know, um, you know, classes or you know, items and things like that to make your your little paints and brushes and things like that. But aside from that, I was like, I don't know how anybody can make money off of just making miniatures. I get the love of it, but wow, that's kind of wild to me.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yeah, I guess if you had a really affluent community where people were really into that kind of thing, maybe. But yeah, that's a it's a question. For sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Yeah. And uh very popular part. Would the lead couple last 12 months?

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Uh yeah, I'm gonna give them 12 months on this one. Sure. I I like their chemistry. Uh it looks like once he left his dad's company, he really doesn't have any attachments to I think it's Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where they live. Uh so yeah, uh yeah, let's let's let's see how they do. Let's give them the year and uh we'll go from there.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

How about you? Yeah, I said yes. I though I wonder how successful Olivia's business Olivia's business is gonna be, and will that be a strain on a relationship? But I like that they encouraged each other to follow their dreams more closely. Uh they're gonna make it for sure. And our absolute this is like I think the one of the most popular segments that we've come up with. Well, we didn't invent it, but this is our our missile. Tometer. And can you rate the kiss? A to F.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Yeah, Renee. I'm I'm I'm I'm pretty confident saying nobody breaks down Hallmark kisses quite like we do. Um, we're we're tough but fair when it comes to graders. So I originally gave this one a B. I I thought it was solid, definitely not an A territory kiss, but solid. But I'm gonna bump it up to a B plus because after that kiss, they gave us a visual of that little tiny miniature of them kissing to end the movie. And I thought that was an awesome touch to the mistletoe meter. So I'm gonna get I'm it's gonna get kind of a half grade bumped up from a B to a B plus because of that uh nice little ending to the movie there. Yeah, with the miniature.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

I gave this one an A minus. I thought it was number one, it looked like a real kiss. You know what I mean? Some of the kisses, they just press their lips together and all that, but this was a real kiss. And that little bit at the end, she did a little bit extra. I'm not gonna get into the naughty details, but you guys can rewind it and look for yourselves. I thought it looked like a real kiss. I would take one of those kisses every day, any day. It was an A minus for me. All right, so B B plus A minus. All right, we're we're close, close enough. Yeah, because we've been apart sometimes, but this is pretty good. Yeah. So for you, who or what won the movie?

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Yeah, for me, uh it's Caparell and Olivia. I she just was really charming. Um, kind of that girl next door. Uh like you say, quirky, uh a little uncomfortable, not always confident, but still very charming, just wanting to do what's best for her community. Uh, the memory of her dad really trying to keep his memory alive there with the Christmas market. I think I think the movie centered around around Olivia. So Caparel, Olivia, you're my MVP of the movie.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

You know, I I guess I'm kind of uh a sucker for decorations. For me, it was like easy, predictable. I liked all the dec all the Christmas decorations. There was so much Christmas spirit everywhere. Uh the production designer is Matt Maz Mazzoli. And I looked a little bit into him because he was the art director in Take Me Back for Christmas, and the set dresser for Christmas and the Rockies. So this is the first time he's got he's credited as a lead production designer. And I I liked his work. I think he's gonna be a lead production designer again going forward. So for me, uh Mark Mazzoli won this won this movie. Perfect. And our overall rating, and this week we're gonna pick how many miniature Christmas trees does this movie get from one to five.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

What do you got? Okay, okay, miniature Christmas trees. Nice symbolic uh item to the uh to the film there. So I was kind of juggling back and forth on a couple scores here. Uh I was kind of comparing this one to Pride, Prejudice, and Mistletoe, which is one we did early in our Chris because it was so formulaic. Uh, this is kind of it, like I say, an old throwback hallmark movie. I gave that one a 3.25. I'm giving this one a 3.5 just because I think that movie didn't really have anything unique to give. I thought the dialogue was both in good in really good in both movies. That was a Nina Weinman movie. She writes really good dialogue. I think the writers here did pretty good with the dialogue. But I'm giving a 3.5 just because I think the miniature displays as well as the whole shipping container angles added some uniqueness to the plot that I'd never seen before in a Hallmark movie. Uh, I liked that it was so cold, it was shot during the winter. That gave me kind of uh some really good Christmas feels to it, uh, having that real snow, that wind. Like I said, you could see the breath coming off of their mouths and scenes, and I really like that. So I'm gonna bump it up a little bit more. I'm gonna give it 3.5 miniature Christmas trees overall, uh, just because those little tiny details, I think, bumps it up for me a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

I initially went with three miniature Christmas trees, which was the same as I did for a Royal Corgi Christmas, and I was and I had looked at the Pride and Prejudice one as well. I was like, hmm. Do I like this more than Royal Corgi Christmas? And I think maybe I did just a tiny bit. So I bumped my review up to 3.25 miniature Christmas trees, is where I settled.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Yeah, that's I I was in between a 3.25 and a 3.5. So we're we're very similar. Very similar. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Okay, Rich. We all know what the next movie is, but if you would introduce it for us, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Everybody knows these Christmas in July movies and what's coming up next. And it's Snowbound for the Holidays. Uh, and it stars Marcus Rosner and Vanessa Lenji's. And yeah, I uh if you've seen the movie poster on this one, it looks it looks pretty hot. And I'm not I'm not gonna lie, uh, I I put out a little post on our Instagram like what I thought was gonna be the hottest mistletoe meter kiss when all of a sudden done. And I and I picked Snowbound for the holidays just based on the movie poster. Um, so we'll see, uh, because uh it is a great poster, but I'm really looking forward to this one. Uh Chris Giroux, who was an executive producer on this one, uh, also did Snowbound for the holidays. We have the same uh production designer, Sarah Lang, uh, back as well. So yeah, I'm curious uh to how this one goes, but it it looks uh there's a lot of previews floating around on it, and uh it looks pretty good. So excited for it. It did look good.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Tune in next week for our review. Uh follow us on the gram, Forever Hallmark Christmas at Instagram, or you can email us at Forever Hallmark Christmas at gmail.com for the love of hallmark. For the love of hallmark.