The Lifetimeverse: Christmas Reservations
If you asked me what the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make was, it was this: deciding which Melissa Joan Hart role was my favorite.
Was it Clarissa Darling in Clarissa Explains It All, where she played a smart, sassy, budding take-no-shit feminist who was comfortable sharing the ups and downs of teenage life?
Was it Sabrina Spellman in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, where she played a smart, sassy, take-no-shit feminist witch that traded barbs with her cat Salem, managed her zany 500-year old aunts, and juggled love and drama in the hallowed halls of high school?
Or was it Grace Wesley in God’s Not Dead 2 (yes, with the number 2), where she played a devout evangelical Christian AP History teacher that:
Was dragged to court for “violating the separation of church and state” for vaguely relating the teachings of a scripture to the work of Gandhi and MLK when a student asked
Befriended a former left-wing blogger whose cancer was cured by god and prayer
Was defended by a public defender played, inexplicably, by Jesse Metcalfe
Enjoyed a cameo with Mike Huckabee
Gave us the jaw-dropping scene of a white character telling the school’s ignorant black principal about what MLK aCtUaLlY meant in his letter from Birmingham jail
(Let me just note that the above movie is, indeed, a movie that someone actually paid money to finance. Let me also note that the above movie is, indeed, a sequel to God’s Not Dead that someone also actually paid money to finance. Let me also also note that the above movie is, indeed, a prequel to God’s Not Dead: A Light in the Darkness about one Pastor David, who was arrested for “failing to turn in his sermons to the government,” that someone also actually paid money to finance.)
“2, guys, let’s add 2 to it to make it cool! Like 2 Fast 2 Furious, but with God!” (Pure Flix)
Until today—this very day—I would’ve chosen God’s Not Dead 2, because if there’s anything I love more in this world than life itself, it’s white evangelical Christians inventing absurd scenarios to get mad about, getting mad about them, and then producing movies to show the world “Ah ha! You thought you’d persecuted me, but you were wrong!”
But that all changed with the emergence of Lifetime’s Christmas Reservations, a glorious masterpiece mashup of racism, painful puns, awkward Gingers, and terrible Christmas movie tropes that makes you want to puke into your peppermint hot chocolate.
Here’s the official rundown from Lifetime:
It’s Christmas at the Treeline Ski Resort (Trope: Quaint Seasonal Locale), where Holly (Trope: Quirky Christmas-Loving Lady) (Trope: Holiday Name) is the event coordinator at her family lodge (Trope: Charming Family Business). She plans every event and keeps all the guests happy (Trope: Working Woman with Non-Discernible Job). But when her college sweetheart (Trope: High School/College Sweetheart), now widowed with two children (Trope: Sympathetic Widowed Dad), checks in, Holly discovers she has her own reservations (Trope: Movie Title Pun) about life and love.
Cool.
The Nightmare Before Christmas
We open with a bland voiceover about the Treeline, which was started when some old Norwegian man unearthed a rare gold nugget in the Adirondacks and used it to buy land and build a lodge. His wife, of course, really did all the work, because of course women did all the work back then without an iota of credit (see also: today).
But how does the disembodied voice know all of this? Why, because it’s their granddaughter! Between a montage of old-timey sepia-toned pictures and quick cuts to stock footage of random skiers on a random mountain, our heroine Holly explains how the lodge has stayed in the family all these years. In fact, her parents even met at the lodge! And got married at the lodge! And she was born in the lodge! Which seems wildly unhygienic, but what do I know.
Holly blathers on for a bit, slinging puns about the movie’s name as she tries blindly to piece together the tattered strings of a plot. “Some people have reservations (Trope: Movie Title Pun) to the lodge,” I think she says, but I was a little distracted as I poured my second glass of wine.
“Other people have other kinds of reservations,” she continues forlornly, her character finally appearing on screen, looking sad behind the reservation desk. “Reservations about love. I checked out of that room a long time ago, and somehow lost the key.”
We can tell.
To distract from this pathetic display, we’re introduced to sisters Tay (played by Night Court’s Markie Post) and Kay (caricatured by…uh, the TV version of Harry and the Hendersons’ Gigi Rice). Yeah, their names are Tay and Kay, fuck you.
Anyway, Kay and her shocking amount of plastic surgery are decked out in a jolly Christmas sweater and a fuzzy white hat that vaguely makes her look like a melting, demented Einstein (Trope: Quirky Christmas-Living Lady). Kay and Tay marvel at the charm of the lodge, and catch a glimpse of stock footage skiers careening wildly on some foreign mountain.
It’s revealed that Kay won a Christmas stay at the lodge on the TV show Winner Winner, where she punched a bunch of kids in a ball pit or something. I have no idea what the writers were thinking with that one, but I really, really wish that was an actual show.
Holly checks the sisters in with her fancy new room reservation system! Then her kindly old dad (played by Family Ties’ dad Michael Gross) comes over with some exciting news of his own: beloved skier Duffy Johnson, who won the silver medal back at the ’88 Calgary Olympics and learned to ski right at this very lodge, is coming back to the resort! “The prodigal son is returning,” kindly old dad says with silver stars in his eyes.
Those are 100% mocktails (Lifetime)
We then of course cut to ol’ Duffy himself (played by Ted McGinley, aka Married…with Children’s very own Jefferson D’Arcy!) who’s doughy and shirtless in a hot tub, waxing poetic about his great ’88 second-place run to a pair of dopey Midwestern-looking tourists.
Luckily the camera careens wildly right back to the lodge just moments later, where we discover that kindly old dad is a widow (Trope: Sympathetic Widowed Dad) but may find a second chance at love with Tay. They bond over Balsam trees! “One of my favorite conifers!” Widowed Grandpa hoots excitedly.
They flirt for a bit over one of the 527 Christmas trees (sorry, Balsams) in the lobby, before Kay and her melting visage come over to whisk Tay off to the mountain. “Hey, let’s move that bottom, I gotta hit the slopes!” she exclaims, her features sliding off her face.
Next up in our never-ending lineup of background characters are Preena and her racist trope grandma, Dadi. Preena is a high school student from India who wants to go to Dartmouth for college, which perturbs and worries Angry Grandma to no end. Preena, wanting the freedom and excitement of a genuine American Christmas, tricks Angry Grandma into coming to the Treeline under the guise of looking at colleges. Surprise, Angry Grandma!
Angry Grandma is an absurd racist caricature, endlessly bitching about how terrible this place is and how her granddaughter needs to go home and forget about her dreams of college in America. She screams constantly about how cold she is and how much she hates it here. She exclaims “this was a big mistake!” no less than a thousand times throughout the movie re: literally everything, and tries to overbearingly micromanage Preena (and shame her for having an iota of interest in a boy) at every possible turn.
Angry Grandma immediately gets a second punching bag with the arrival of Leo Demarco. If you imagine a suave Italian stud that’s here to whisk Preena off her feet and into a life of sin, you’re wrong—Leo is a stuttering, awkward, mousey Ginger that they mistake for a bellhop because his jacket is vaguely the same shade of red as the actual bellhops. Hilarious!
While trying desperately to lift one of Preena’s 10-pound suitcases, it’s revealed that Leo is wearing a Dartmouth sweatshirt. That’s right—he goes to Preena’s dream school! Preena excitedly pumps him for information, until Angry grandma snaps “more hip, less lip!” and forces Leo to bodily drag the luggage to their room.
Last but not least in this Christmas break’s lineup is none other than Kevin Portillo (played by Ricardo Antonio Chavira, aka Mr. Eva Longoria on Desperate Housewives!) who happens to be none other than…Holly’s college sweetheart! (Trope: High School/College Sweetheart.) What a twist!
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Mr. Longoria comes careening in with two wildly precocious twins (Trope: Overly Precocious Children) who demand to know how much snow the lodge gets per year. Mr. Longoria babbles on about “snow power, go power!” and about how he’s “into renewable energy” which thus begins an admirable, if abject failure, at being environmentally conscious throughout the film. I’m pretty sure one of the writers just got solar panels and decided to work something topical into the script to continue to prove that he knows what he’s talking about when he tries to chime in during a water cooler recap of the latest Democratic debate.
And this is where things get crazy.
Widowed Grandpa checks in Mr. Longoria but has to do it by hand in an old ledger…because Holly’s new room reservation software is crashing! The humanity! As he and his precocious twins gather their belongings and head off to their room, Holly catches a glimpse of him and stops dead in her tracks. Could it be?
“Help, dad, I can’t read” (Lifetime)
She hurries over to the reservation desk, grabs the ledger, and frantically scans to the last line. It is! There, in hilariously girlish handwriting, is the name Kevin Portillo. Holly’s barely able to throw a plot-advancing bone about who the fuck Kevin is to her dad before she sprints off after them, leading to a hilariously stupid scene where the two catch each other’s gazes—with Holly in the middle of a hallway and Kevin in an open elevator—and stare at each other like surprised pufferfish out of water.
Reeling from this reveal, Mr. Longoria staggers into his room and paws at a brochure listing off all the holiday events during the Christmas week. His children jump on the bed with their shoes on like wild fucking animals, but Mr. Longoria is too distracted to notice—especially when he flips to the back of the brochure and it’s revealed that it is, indeed, his former love Holly! Her headshot smiles up at him, declaring that she’s the lodge’s Event Coordinator.
Event Coordinator! Holly is the daughter of the fucking owner and can’t rise above the rank of fucking Event Coordinator. Smash the patriarchy, indeed.
Across the lodge, Holly is reeling in her own room, pouring over a 2002 college yearbook with a hilariously photoshopped picture of her and Kevin on the yearbook staff page. The characters are supposed to be 40, which really doesn’t work—Mr. Longoria is 48 and looks 48, and MJH is 43 and looks 53, so it’s a real stretch this movie isn’t warmed up enough to make.
Realizing we’ve spent too much time focused on our main characters, the camera cuts wildly to the rest of our B-roll cast. Tay gets a Christmas sweater from Kay, then draws a bath to drown out the sound of a phone call. It turns out she might be sick! With what, we don’t know, and neither does Tay—she can’t actually get a hold of the doctor. We already know she’s not actually sick, because—remember—we’re in the Lifetimeverse. In the Lifetimeverse, characters may face the possibility of a mystery illness, but they never have a mystery illness.
Down the hall, Angry Grandma finds a regular old bathing suit bottom in Preena’s luggage and flips her fucking this. “What is this???” she demands, her voice so high it shattered my window. “Did you leave the rest of this in India?? I told your father I had reservations (Trope: Movie Title Pun) about bringing you here!” Slut-shaming over a bikini bottom! Hilarious!
On the slopes, Duffy poses with a selfie stick for a fan, and then says goodbye to them with a fist bump.
Back in the lodge, Mr. Longoria is struggling with a way to get rid of his children so he can go hunt down his former love. And he comes up with the perfect idea! His kids want a dog, and since they’re bilingual and good with languages, they need to become fluent in Dog before they can get a dog! Hilarious!
Figuring that’ll keep them busy for a few weeks, he takes off for the common room, where Holly is. Holly is wearing Christmas tree earrings, and yet he still hits on her. This movie is so wildly unbelievable.
He asks her if she still burns marshmallows. They reminisce about something to do with the Marco Island Marriott. For no discernible reason, Holly says Kevin can’t help her with dinner prep because she could drop a table on his head. For no discernible reason, he then exclaims: “Now that’s the Holly I remember!”
You can cut the sexual tension with a knife (Lifetime)
They demand to know if the other has a partner, and, shockingly, both are single. And because—remember—this is the Lifetimeverse, Kevin is revealed, of course, to be a widow (Trope: Sympathetic Widowed Dad). That makes two widowed dads in one movie! Bingo!
As they stroll through the lodge, they reminisce some more, this time about that time they went camping, where Kevin pretended he lost his car keys and made them walk FIVE MILES to the nearest service station, all so he could “spend more time with her.” Holly is just SHOCKED to hear this! Not that he needlessly forced her to walk 5 miles, of course, because she would walk 500 miles (and she would walk 500 more) but because he had wanted to spend more time with her and she never knew!
Wait, didn’t they fucking date? Aren’t they supposed to be exes? Why would he force her to walk literal miles just to spend time with her, if they were already dating? Is this before they dated? Were they on a break? Did he bang the girl from the copy place?
We don’t get an immediate answer, because we then have to suffer more time with the precocious twins. They somehow find a very healthy, very happy stray Golden Retriever gallivanting around in the snow! Looks like Santa came early! They smuggle the dog into the lodge and stuff it in a closet before flouncing outside for a snowball fight. These kids are so ready for a dog!
Their snowball fight quickly becomes an armed assault as they spot Holly and Kevin and begin pelting them with snowballs. This makes our Maybe College Sweethearts have to hold each other against the onslaught! God, there’s nothing that turns me on more than clinging to an ex from 20 years ago while his obnoxious children pelt us with flying projectiles.
Then everyone laughs, and it’s a great time.
Holly reluctantly removes herself from Mr. Longoria’s strong arms to prepare for the night’s Christmas Trivia (she is the Events Coordinator, after all!) and give us a heavy dose of foreshadowing: Winter Storm Megan is on the way! It could close the roads!
She relays this breaking news to Widowed Grandpa in between discussing Kevin. Widowed Grandpa asks if they were buddies; Holly admit they were “a bit more than buddies” but so far all I can tell is that their relationship consisted of lies and forced physical activity, so I’m not really sure what’s going on here.
Neither Holly nor Widowed Grandpa seem to know, either. “What happened between you two?” Widowed Grandpa asks.
“And that is the ultimate trivia question,” (Trope: Plot Pun) Holly sighs, staring out the window at stock footage of more skiers.
Trivia Night
Our B-roll characters gather once more for the painful Trivia Night extravaganza. Angry Grandma won’t allow Preena to get Leo’s number to discuss Dartmouth, and makes them go through her instead. Tay and Kay are now wearing new matching Christmas sweaters. Tay squeals to Widowed Grandpa about how much she loves the lodge’s Christmas decorations. “I’ve counted 25 nutcrackers just in this room!” she exclaims, which is honestly one of my biggest nightmares. Duffy is also there, for some reason.
Holly stumbles in to lead the trivia. She asks a bunch of stupid, incredibly niche Christmas trivia questions, which our gaggle of losers aggressively ring jingle bells at to answer. Mr. Longoria knows all of the answers, of course. Leo’s friend confuses Bigfoot for the Grinch. Holly’s hair looks shockingly greasy. Mr. Longoria smugly announces that mistletoe is a parasitic plant.
Holly, frustrated and yet likely aroused by Mr. Longoria’s ability to rapid-fire Christmas answers, ramps up her game and begins hurling questions at him. He begins answering so effortlessly that he begins throwing out correct answers before Holly can even ask the questions. Flummoxed, Holly all but screams one last trivia question at him: “WHY DID WE EVER BREAK UP??
Mr. Longoria’s eyes get so wide, and his pupils so dilated, that I was curious if he had ingested some LSD with his hot chocolate. Now that would make this movie fun.
Horrified, Holly turns and runs away from Trivia Night. (No wonder she’s never made it past Events Coordinator.)
“Well that was some trivia contest!” exclaims Tay.
Widowed Grandpa hunts down Holly to pacify her. “I thought I was over him,” Holly whines. “He’s the one that got away…”
Tay sashays over to Mr. Longoria to pacify him. “I thought I was over her,” he whines.
“Who was she?” Tay asks stupidly.
“The one that got away…” Mr. Longoria trails off, gazing out the window at more stock skiing footage.
Still reeling from the electricity between Holly and Mr. Longoria, the rest of our rejects peter out to distract themselves. Since we’re in hell, we get to focus on Angry Grandma, who’s in the common room having a stroke over a jigsaw puzzle she can’t figure out. She forgets about her fury moments later to grill a still-dazed Holly, who wandered over.
“You stumped that man…good for you!” This marks the very first time Angry Grandma has been palatable, so I’ll relish it.
“Tell me what I want to know or I’ll kill you” (Lifetime)
“Where did you meet?” she continues.
“We went to Syracuse,” Holly explains.
“Not on our list!” snaps Angry Grandma, as though Holly just said her college was actually a shack in the woods and her professors were feral wolves. I hate her again.
Reindeer Games
For some reason, Mr. Longoria is still interested in Holly and hunts her down the next morning “I wanted to see if we might get a coffee,” he asks her, finding her in her office, which I’m pretty sure isn’t open to the public.
Holly refuses, saying she needs to fix the still-broken room reservation system. Since Mr. Longoria knows about renewable energy, he thinks this makes him qualified to fix the system. Sure.
Showing that he’s never sat at a desk before and doesn’t understand its mechanics, he awkwardly tries to use the mouse and keyboard by hovering over and around Holly, wrapping his arms loosely around her and jabbing her in the jugular with his chin.
While this is the least sexy thing I’ve ever seen, the mere idea of it seems to be utterly tantalizing to Tay and Angry Grandma, who are inexplicably sitting outside the office.
“Guess who’s been in the office for 30 minutes!” Angry Grandma demands of Tay. “Holly and the smart, handsome, absent-minded professor!” None of those adjectives describe Mr. Longoria, but sure. Tay then tells Angry Grandma to put her feet in the hot tub to stay warm all week. I hate this movie.
Back in the office, Mr. Longoria fixes the reservation software (sure) and presses on. “So, about last night,” he demands. Holly says she thinks they broke up with each other again. Okay so they weren’t dating, so they can’t break up. If this is their idea of dating, no wonder they claimed they dated in college despite not actually dating at fucking all.
The two peruse their college yearbook and claim both still look good. Sure. They talk about how Holly used to “have a good eye” as a photographer, which I find difficult to believe. Mr. Longoria signs the yearbook in Spanish, which definitely won’t be important later. I pour my third glass of wine.
Back in their room, Mr. Longoria’s completely forgotten children are getting up to no good again. “Dad said we can’t have a dog, we might get into trouble,” one says, petting their smuggled Golden Retriever.
“We can probably, maybe, keep him alive!” (Lifetime)
“But he never said we can’t have one of Santa’s reindeer!” the other exclaims excitedly. They both light up and sprint out of the room, running to the common room to promptly ransack a tree and stuffed animal display. They then sprint back to the room and make the dog a makeshift antler helmet. Brilliant!
No, seriously, this is brilliant. The collective IQ of these characters is somewhere around 34, so of course they’re going to fall for this.
Pleased with their handiwork, the twins shove the dog back in the closet and gallivant outside for a snowman building contest. That brilliant Holly and her Events!
Holly of course has unearthed her camera—which she hadn’t touched for 20 years, yet which is conveniently right under her desk—and is now snapping pictures of our idiots as they make snowmen. Leo wheezes as he makes his, while Preena swoons and Angry Grandma gets angry.
“Say cheese!” Holly croons, snapping pictures of the unhappy trio.
She then joins Mr. Longoria and the twins, and, feeling sassy, plucks Kevin’s Syracuse scarf right off him and puts it on their snowman!
“Let’s go Orange!” they cheer. Hooray!
Growing suspicious of all this scarf steeling, the precious twins finally confront their father. “Dad, did you date Holly in college??” they demand to know.
“Just for one week,” replies Holly, looking wistful.
OKAY SO HOLD THE FUCK UP.
These fucking idiots only dated for a FUCKING WEEK back when they were roughly 21-22 (roughly 20 FUCKING YEARS AGO), and they count that as a FUCKING RELATIONSHIP? Was this before or after Mr. Longoria forced Holly to hike for 5 blister-inducing miles in the woods? Do they consider 2 weeks a longterm relationship? Holly is so fucking pathetic that I can imagine her pining away for her lost love over a mind-numbing 20 years, but Mr. Longoria is far more conventionally attractive and significantly less pathetic, so I would assume that even after losing his wife, the last women he’d pine for would be fucking Holly. But guess what, kids? WE. ARE. IN. HELL. And in the fiery bowels of Hell, Satan luxuriates in our misery, so here the fuck we are.
Anyway, Holly snaps back to reality and remembers that she’s the big fancy Events Coordinator, and it’s time to wrap up the snowman making competition!
“I have never seen such an impressive display of snowmen!” she exclaims, as the camera pans over a sea of drooping, misshapen, nightmarish excuses for snowmen.
“And snowwomen,” Holly adds with a horrible giggle. This seems like an unexpected moment of equality, but then we see Tay and Kay’s snowwoman, who’s decked out in pink sequins or what the fuck ever, so just kill me now.
Feeling generous, and being terrible at her job, Holly then declares them all winners! And tells them to check their snowpeople’s hats for their prizes!
In a crazy twist, Mr. Longoria and kids have won…a romantic dinner for two!
Okay, so two things here:
The characters have been manhandling those hats for the entirety of this hellish scene—how the fuck hasn’t a SINGLE one of them discovered their prize?
The activity is clearly meant for kids and parents, so why the fuck would a prize be a romantic fucking dinner for two?
But fuck common sense, because it furthers the plot, people—Mr. Longoria is clearly taking Holly on a romantic dinner to her place of employment!
There’s a knee-slappingly funny scene where Holly says she’ll make it dinner for three, so her beloved can enjoy an intimate, romantic, candlelit dinner with his own children, but Mr. Longoria says make it for four! Luckily the twins are super skeeved out by all of this and pass. Rico fucking Suave can take Holly and leave them the fuck out of this.
Holly says “it’s a date!” and Mr. Longoria says “good” and my god, can you feel the chemistry, people?
Everything is Awful
We take a break from our pathetic excuse for a couple and instead spend some time catching up with our cast of background nobodies.
First, we zoom into the men’s locker rooms (supposedly on the slopes?) where we get an eyeball full of a hilariously photoshopped poster of the ’88 Calgary Olympics. A young, virile skier zooms down a mountain, with Duffy’s head plastered terribly on its neck.
Two young bros cackle over the poster. “He acts like he’s a big deal, and he only won the bronze!” says one of them, without an Olympic fucking medal to his name.
A confused Duffy overhears and emerges as they leave, but instead of being upset, just exclaims “I won the silver! The silver! Like my beard!” Then he laughs and preens. The man is clearly a sociopath.
He then hits the slops and bumps into Kay, whose face is dangerously close to collapsing in on itself. Turns out she won a private ski lesson with a pro—and SURPRISE! GUESS WHO THAT PRO IS! Duffy claims he found out she’d won the prize and struck a deal with the resort, but I don’t fucking see any other pro skiers flying down these stock footage mountains, so frankly, I find the entire thing rather hard to swallow.
Up next is a visit from Preena, the Ginger, and Angry Grandma. Angry Grandma angrily exclaims that you shouldn’t date in college, but as soon as her back is turned, Preena demands the Ginger’s phone so she can give him her number for a hot tub date. “Hurr hurr, hurr hurr, okay!” says the Ginger.
HE LITERALLY SAYS THIS. HE FUCKING HURR HURRS. FUCK I HATE THIS MOVIE.
We then turn to Widowed Grandpa and Tay, who apparently have fallen in love despite only having had a grand total of 1.5 conversations, and knowing each other for a grand total of 1.5 days. That wily old widow shows up at Kay’s door with her Christmas gift—and it’s an armful of Christmas paraphernalia!
As they deck the tree inexplicably in Tay and Kay’s room, Widowed Grandpa explains that the ornaments they’re currently festooning the tree with were made by his dearly departed wife. If there’s one thing in this world a woman can’t resist, it’s sharing a romantic moment with the memories of their love interest’s departed wife.
Widowed Grandpa babbles on about how Holly was almost a Christmas baby (Trope: Main Character Christmas Birth) but came two weeks early. Kay lightens the mood by telling Widowed Grandpa she always wanted kids but never did, but she’s a great aunt and taught lots of kids to play the piano and Jesus fucking Christ, if that’s not one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard. What the fuck is wrong with you, Lifetime?
After this torture, they pop on a video of a Yule log (“I love this show!” Tay exclaims) and snuggle by the fake fire.
“I never thought I’d feel this way again,” says Widowed Grandpa to a virtual stranger.
“I’m feeling oddly warm and fuzzy around you, too,” Tay says, resting her head on his shoulder. I can only assume they’ve both drugged each other.
“Did we die? Are we in Hell?” (Lifetime)
Widowed Grandpa then appears to fake a phone call, demands to know “how [Tay] feels about Charles Dickens,” and then sprints away into the night.
Finally—unfortunately—it’s time for Holly and Mr. Longoria’s romantic dinner for 4 that’s now a romantic dinner for 2. Holly walks in wearing a hilariously unflattering, outdated, cranberry-colored lace dress with weird bell sleeves, and Mr. Longoria declares himself struck dumb. Dumb is the right fucking term.
They then discuss their past, and it is FUCKING MIND-BOGGLING. Here’s what they say:
They dated each other’s friends, but not each other...
But Holly claims they went on one date, which was river rafting…
Which Mr. Longoria declares untrue, and says it wasn’t a date…
So Holly asks him why he had his arms around her…
To which Mr. Longoria claims he only did because he “was terrified of drowning…”
Then Holly asks “Why did we wait to long? We flirted with each other for years…”
Then they talk about Senior Week, and Holly says it was her favorite week…
SO HOLD THE FUCK UP. DID THESE TWO FUCKING IDIOTS DATE OR NOT? DID THEY DATE DURING SENIOR WEEK? THEY SAID THEY DATED FOR A WEEK. DID THEY? DID THEY NOT? WHY DIDN’T MR. LONGORIA JUST FUCKING DROWN IN THAT RIVER AND SAVE US ALL FROM THIS HORROR?
Walkin’ in a Winter Wasteland
Don’t worry, kids, the mystery of where Widowed Grandpa disappeared to is finally answered: he had to dress up as Charles Dickens and read A Christmas Carol to the guests! Man, that Holly and her brilliant events!
More shit happens, but I just can’t fucking do it anymore. Holly claims she applies for jobs and gets them, but doesn’t want to leave her dad. This is a staggeringly false statement, as her resume consists of “hosting snowman-making contests and forcing my elderly father to dress up like Charles Dickens” so no, no one is hiring her anytime soon.
Tay says “I love A Christmas Carol, it touches me,” and we all cringe.
Tay then adds “I’ve always had such…reservations (Trope: Movie Title Pun) about my life,” and we all cringe.
Widowed Grandpa then replies “I can help you! I work at a hotel, and I’m very good at canceling reservations!” (Trope: Movie Title Pun) and we all kill ourselves.
Meanwhile, Holly and Mr. Longoria decide on a date the following day. He walks her to her room. They do not kiss goodnight.
Preena and the Ginger sneak off to the hot tub for some Darmouth discussion, but Angry Grandma of course read her texts and storms in to break up the shenanigans. She then brings up Tay’s insane claim that if she puts her feet in the hot tub, she’ll be warm for the rest of the week. So she boots Ginger out and finally warms her frozen feet.
BUT THEN!
HARK, WHAT DO THE HERALD ANGELS SEE? Why, it’s a REINDEER!
In a stunning turn of events, that antler-hatted Golden Retriever has busted out of its closet, probably looking for food and water, and is sprinting around the property. And again, because the entire cast has a collective IQ of somewhere around 34, THEY ALL THINK IT’S A REAL FUCKING REINDEER AND FREAK THE FUCK OUT.
No, literally, everyone. The guests are BLOWING UP THE DAMN LODGE PHONE to tell the staff that a REINDEER is on the MOTHERFUCKING LOOSE!
Clearly this has broken everyone’s brains, because we then cut to the next afternoon, where Angry Grandma and Preens are…taking a sled ride down the mountain.
“I’m SO excited to be here!” screams Angry Grandma. “I love the snow!”
I hate this so fucking much I’m not even getting into this absurd fucking departure from any and all characterization. At least they’re not (for the moment) being fucking racist, so that’s a win.
To drag this bullshit on, the next “event” is building gingerbread houses. Angry Grandma builds the Taj Mahal. Holly and Mr. Longoria build their dream home, complete with a photo studio for Holly, who hasn’t picked up a camera in 20 fucking years.
We then inexplicably cut to a scene of Holly teaching Mr. Longoria how to ski. They of course get stuck on the chairlift, and of course do not kiss. He does, however, discuss renewable energy with her. This guy is going to turn me into a fucking conservative, I swear to fucking god.
Mr. Longoria says he’s thinking about taking a buyout on his business from his business partner. He did mention this earlier, but I just didn’t fucking feel like including it.
Suddenly they’re back in the hotel, and Mr. Longoria is nonchalantly strolling with the now antler-less Golden Retriever. Apparently, he found the dog offscreen and discovered its owners—an older couple who didn’t know he was missing, despite the dog having been missing for like, a week now. They can’t take care of him and want to put him in a kennel. Mr. Longoria sort of shrugs it off.
Holly joins them and they reminisce about fucking Senior Week again. JESUS PEOPLE, GROW THE FUCK UP.
“We’re really good at falling in love, aren’t we?” asks Holly.
“We’re kind of great at it,” Mr. Longoria agrees.
“We’re the worst!” (Lifetime)
So this is abjectly false. These two are worse at falling in love than their actors are at acting, and THAT is really fucking saying something. These two pathetic caricatures wouldn’t know love if it beat them to death with one of the 642,497 nutcrackers from the lobby set. I hate this move. I hate these characters. I hate everyone and everything involved in this movie.
A POX ON ALL YOUR HOUSES.
But then!
And this is genuinely shocking—they kiss. THEY KISS. This almost NEVER happens in the Lifetimeverse. We wait for the kiss to the end, like the good chaste Christians that we are!
“So, what do we do now?” asks Holly, mindblown from the insanity of it all.
The answer to that? Why, it’s work on a jigsaw puzzle while holding hands, just like the good chaste Christians that they are.
A puzzle piece falls to the floor, unseen. I pour my fifth glass of wine.
Off on the slopes, amidst all the stock footage, Duffy wipes out and sprains his ankle. Classic Olympian move. Kay brings him hot cocoa. It’s all very romantic.
Santa shows up and they all, inexplicably, take turns sitting on his lap. Preena and Angry Grandma each take a knee and bicker. Tay wants good news aka no mystery illness for Christmas. Boy twin wants a dog. Girl twin’s Christmas wish has already come true—she wanted her dad to fall in love again! The Ginger wants a girlfriend for Christmas, because apparently women are just property that men are free to hand out to each other.
“Dude, you’ve gotta stop wishing!” exclaims Duffy, who’s nearby with his hot cocoa. “Santa didn’t get Mrs. Clause by wishing! You gotta drop the hammer!”
I have no fucking clue what that means, and I never care to find out.
Tay continues her arc by calling the doctor, and then being flummoxed by the notion that it’s like, 8pm, oh and Christmas Eve, and her doctor has gone home for the day. She then breaks down and, in front of everyone, tells Widowed Grandpa she can’t do this and has to be honest—she might “not be well” and all.
Kay is SHOCKED by this news (not that you can tell, because her face can’t properly move).
“I had such reservations (Trope: Move Title Pun) about telling you because I didn’t want to ruin your vacation!” she tries to explain. I pour my ninth glass of wine.
People then, for no good reason, start dancing.
In the background, Angry Grandma inexplicably drinks a espresso martini and says Bollywood really knows dancing.
Holly and Mr. Longoria awkwardly sway off beat. “But after Christmas,” Holly whines, “the one who got away is getting away again.” She then launches into a monologue about how it can’t work between them because she can’t leave her dad, and Mr. Longoria can’t uproot his kids, and I don’t fucking care at all.
“Is this really over?” asks Mr. Longoria dumbly.
Then the re-antlered dog comes bounding into the room and knocks everything over.
“Easy, Prancer!” someone yells.
At this point, I jumped out my window to end it all, but sadly my new apartment is only about 5 feet off the ground.
In all the mayhem, Angry Grandma realizes Preena has given her the slip, and finds her, panicking. She was SO SCARED because a REINDEER was ON THE LOOSE and she didn’t know where Preena was! MY GOD, THE HUMANITY.
The two have a heart-to-heard about how much they’ll miss each other when Preena goes to school in the US, and Preena promises to call every Sunday. I give that a full two weeks, max. Preena unearths a s’more from somewhere for Angry Grandma.
“Want to watch a movie?” Preena asks.
“Not tonight—Santa Clause is coming!” exclaims Angry Grandma, and they giggle.
Kill me.
Speaking of which, we’re then treated to a scene of Duffy eating chicken wings in the hot tub. He tells someone off-camera he came back here “because this is where it all began. This is where the silver was forged. This is my fountain of youth.” He pauses for another wing, before continuing.
“You have to promise not to tell another soul that…right now I don’t even care about skiing! I never thought I could love anyone but myself but…!”
I don’t know if he’s talking about the wings or Tay. The camera pans to the dog, who apparently is the recipient of this admittance. The dog also seems stumped as to whom Duffy is referring to.
Back in the lodge, Holly stress eats her gingerbread dream house. Widowed Grandpa joins her, and they commiserate over a pint of peppermint ice cream.
Widowed Grandpa tells Holly it’s been a long time since her mom passed, and he’s forgotten what it feels like, but when he sees Tay, he remembers how much he “loves love.” This is patently false, because no one falls in love in less than a week.
“I love love, too,” laments Holly. “But Mr. Longoria is going back to Buffalo.”
BUFFALO?? JESUS WOMAN, COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS YOU GOT OUT OF THAT WHEN YOU DID!
This lovely moment of pure insanity is interrupted by the phone ringing—it’s Tay and Kay! The heat is out! They’re cold!
Widowed Grandpa sprints to their room with…a single, thin-ass throw blanket to “keep them warm.” Mr. Longoria strolls over to the front desk to offer to fix the furnace, since he knows about renewable energy and all. He and Gramps head own to the basement to fix the furnace, and he leaves his phone behind.
Which means, of course, he gets a text saying “Have you made your decision yet” from someone—my GOD—named Maggie. And, of course, Holly wanders over and sees it. THE HUMANITY.
Holly gasps and incorrectly reads it aloud as “Did you make your decision yet.”
I hate this movie.
Down in the basement, the two widows babble on.
Widowed Grandpa says: “You can’t go through life with all these reservations (Trope: Movie Title Pun)—you have to cancel them!” (Trope: Movie Title Pun.)
Mr. Longoria says: “I have reservations (Trope: Movie Title Pun) about being a good dad right now.”
He then sighs, blows into a piece of plastic much like one did with an early Nintendo, and fixes the fucking furnace. I give up.
Back upstairs, Holly despairs over news that the band they hired for Christmas can’t make it. We cut to more stock footage of a blizzard somewhere, seemingly, in rural Russia. Angry Grandma joins her to continue work on that fucking jigsaw puzzle. They almost finish it, but alas, that missing piece has come back to bite them in the ass.
“There’s a piece missing,” Holly declares helpfully. “We can’t finish it.” Angry Grandma tells her to look under the table, but still nothing. “It’s not there, it’s not anywhere!” she whines, utterly destroyed.
“Just because you can’t find it doesn’t mean it’s lost,” says Angry Grandma, the woman who, until perhaps 30 seconds ago, was just a wild ball of fury and hate. “Someday you’ll find it, and everything will fit as it should.”
Kill me. Please, god, just fucking kill me.
On Christmas Day in the Morning
And then it’s Christmas!
Here’s how the gift swapping goes:
Widowed Grandpa gives Mr. Longoria his very own reindeer—the dog! Which seems wildly inappropriate, because a dog is a living, breathing animal that needs love and attention and care and, you know, permission from someone to actually own it.
This is all meaningless, however, because Mr. Longoria promptly says “come on, the kids are going to love you!”
Angry Grandma gives Preena a Dartmouth sweater—seems she’s had a full change of heart! “Just in case everything works out, you and Leo could have matching outfits!” She says, delighted. Yeah, that’ll go over well at college. She then adds “I like Ivy League boys!” And reveals that she’d seen Ginger in the hot tub with Preena! “Next time, tell him to put on a robe!” she hoots, and the two dissolve into manic laughter. Also, where the fuck did she get that sweater from?
Preena gives Angry Grandma an album from the Lodge gift shop for their *~memories~* and Angry Grandma claims Santa really did make her Christmas wish come true skjhdsjhgjkhfgASfsffjddgfd
Mr. Longoria thrusts the dog at this Precocious Twins.
The Precocious Twins give Mr. Longoria a framed picture of him with Holly. Where this came from, I have no fucking idea. He oohs over it for a hot second, before saying he has a call he has to take, leaving his children on Christmas morning to go talk business.
Kay wakes up Tay (who’s completely decked out in a face full of makeup) and gives her an ornament from the lodge!
Tay gives Kay a Christmas sweater with an ENORMOUS REINDEER HEAD on it. There is 0.0% chance that thing is getting through TSA on their way home.
Preena gives Ginger nothing, but does show him her fancy new Dartmouth sweater, and then they dine on stale marshmallows for breakfast.
Apparently this took 10 hours, because it’s now immediately dinner time! Sadly the musical show was cancelled, but just when all seems lost, Tay gets a call from her doctor (yes, on Christmas night) telling her—hooray!—she doesn’t have a mystery illness. God bless the Lifetimeverse.
“No, seriously, we’re the worst!” (Lifetime)
To show their enthusiasm for no more death and whatever, the entire fucking cast breaks out into Deck the Halls. Well, everyone but Angry Preena and Grandma, because…
CUT THE LIGHTS! CUE UP THE RED AND GREEN STROBE LIGHTS! SMASH THAT PLAY BUTTON ON THE BOLLYWOOD JAMS!
That’s right, you fuckers, Angry Grandma and Preena are bringing Bollywood to the Treeline! How and where and why, I cannot tell you. Everyone just begins horribly dancing, and doing horribly offensive hand movements and terrible white people dance moves to the music. Holly and Mr. Longoria flail at each other while pouting. It’s so bad. It’s SO bad. I cringed so hard I gave myself a stroke, and yet even that didn’t put me out of my misery.
Outside, the stock footage storm rages on.
After the wild, raucous dance party, Angry Grandma makes a beeline for Holly, saying she has a complaint. “After the dance, why didn’t you kiss that nice man,” she demands.
“That’s your complaint?” a stunned Holly slurs. “I thought the heat wasn’t working again!”
“There’s heat between you two!” Angry Grandma insists, while I puked up all my wine. “Why aren’t you feeling it?”
Holly hems and haws about how she can’t leave her dad and the lodge.
Angry Grandma isn’t taking anymore of this shit. “Your dad is fine,” she snarls, and for once I agree. “He’s going to end up with the music teacher! He stopped being lonely the minute she walked in here. Now it’s your turn to stop being lonely. Tomorrow we return to our lives—where will you go?”
Okay so no, Widowed Grandpa did not stop being lonely the minute Tay walked in, but she does have a fucking point with the rest of it.
Put a Bow On It
Alas, the final day of everyone’s Christmas week is here, because of fucking course they were all here for the exact same amount of time. Tay says she very much enjoyed her time here and she rated it on the internet!
Outside, Kay waddles towards the lodge shuttle (guess that HORRIFIC BLIZZARD the night before has completely cleared up without a single issue a mere 8 hours later!), and Duffy comes careening out of nowhere in a panic.
“So you’re just going to grab your pink leopard bag and roll away?” he cries, as Kay tries to look startled but her face won’t allow it.
“We did!” Kay finally manages to form through her heavily filled lips. “We had fun!”
“I’d like to come visit you!” claims the man who’s known her for like, a total of 3 hours.
Kay tells him her daughter and grandkids live with her. Duffy is FLABBERGASTED that she could have grandchildren, despite clearly being in her 60s. He tells her he came back to the Treeline to say goodbye to his old life and find something new, and thought he’d found that with her.
Kay sassily retorts that she made a pact to herself to enjoy her life this week, and Duffy was a big part of that this week. “Thank you!” she chirps.
A dejected Duffy starts to slink away, but then Kay sassily turns and calls out for him. Har har, she was just kidding! “If this is gonna work,” she laughs, crazily, “you need to keep your sense of humor!” Hilarious! Nothing like a good, hearty rejection in front of other people to make the heart grow fonder.
“Now grab your luggage and join me!” she exclaims, hopping onto the shuttle.
“Hi-ho Silver, away!” Duffy screams, sprinting to join her.
(Please pardon me while I go scream into the void.)
Preena and the Ginger say goodbye, until they’re reunited at Dartmouth. Angry Grandma practically screams at her to give him a goodbye hug.
Mr. Longoria checks out. A tearful Holly says she’ll still be at the lodge next year, causing her lost love to slink sadly out the door.
Moments later, Widowed Grandpa marches over to give a gift to Holly that he forgot to bestow yesterday—he’s firing her! That’s right, he hands her a letter of termination. Hilarious!
“You’re firing me??” a gobsmacked Holly asks.
“No,” says Widowed Grandpa, chuckling, “I’m liberating you!”
Tay emerges from the branches of the nearest Balsam, and Widowed Grandpa announces that she’ll be the new Events Coordinator so Holly can go live her life, not his. Also, he found that fucking missing jigsaw puzzle piece, and slaps it in Holly’s hand. “Don’t let the one that got away once, get away twice! Tell him how you feel!”
Holly sprints out to go hunt down Mr. Longoria, huffing and puffing at an alarming rate. Sometimes, she says in a voiceover, when people check out (Trope: Movie Title Pun), they leave things behind. My job—my old job—was to help them find them.
In desperation, I opened another bottle of wine, grabbed a funnel, and downed the entire thing.
As Holly sprints off camera, Mr. Longoria gets a text. Turns out that Maggie was his business partner! He’s gotten himself out of the business, whatever the fuck it was, and now is free!
“That is a man in love!” Angry Grandma screams in the distance, as Mr. Longoria starts running in another direction, presumably to find Holly.
Angry Grandma turns tail and begins sprinting after Mr. Longoria, and the rest of the fucking cast joins her, creating one sprinting, wheezing, sweating mob. Taking a page out of the Loony Tunes playbook, Holly keeps sprinting the other way moments after the mob comes galloping through. Hilarious!
Finally, Mr. Longoria and the mess of a mob slam through the front doors, just as Holly finds them.
“What did you forget?” pants Holly, bright red and gasping desperately for air.
“You!” chokes out Mr. Longoria, clutching painfully at this sides. “I came back for you! I sold my company, that’s who Maggie is!”
Holly can barely believe her luck, spitting out how she’s leaving the lodge. The two chatter right over each other, and it. is. hilarious.
“What were you saying,” Holly tries, as Mr. Longoria slurs, “what were YOU saying?” My god, get these two a pair of Emmy’s, STAT!
“Come to Buffalo with me,” Mr. Longoria finally manages.
“I want to come with you,” Holly exclaims, which is likely the first time in recorded history that anyone (even a fictional character) even so much as hinted that they wanted to willingly go to Buffalo. “I want my photo studio and my solar-powered house in Buffalo so I can take pics of your beautiful children and aways stump you in trivia,” Holly babbles, and honestly, girl, slow your fucking roll. Don’t go and get too greedy too fast there.
“I have a trivia question for you,” Mr. Longoria interrupts, not having heard a single demand Holly just made. “Why did the couple get engaged on Christmas? So they could have a MARRIED Christmas!”
GET IT??? A MARRIED CHRISTMAS??? IT’S LIKE A “MERRY” CHRISTMAS BUT HE’S FUCKING PROPOSING WITHOUT A FUCKING RING, AND HE’S MAKING A FUCKING PUN OUT OF A PROPOSAL, AND WE ARE SO DEEP INTO HELL THAT THERE IS NO HOPE FOR ANY OF US, EVER AGAIN.
“That’s a great question!” Holly screams, cementing our fate. “My answer is yes!”
Then they kiss. Then Mr. Longoria hands Widowed Grandpa a torn scrap of paper with random numbers scribbled on it. “SNOW POWER IS GO POWER!” he screams. Turns out Mr. Longoria wants to invest in the Treeline! And make it sustainable! With turbines, and wind power, and solar power, and whatever buzzwords he pulled from Wikipedia!
HURRAH! (Lifetime)
Then they jump in a white Tesla and speed off! Then Widowed Grandpa and Tay go inside to the front desk and welcome the new guests!
THE FUCKING END.
And a Bitch Fest in a Pear Tree
Wow, kids, it’s been a hell of a fucking ride. During this hour and change, I sold my soul to the devil just to get out of this endless nightmare. Frying away in the bowels of Hell for all eternity is a more enticing future than having to watch one more second of this movie, or these people, or anything on Lifetime.
Alas, Satan is a difficult mistress of his own, so let’s suffer through a few more minutes to recap some of the finer points of this madness.
First and foremost: Love doesn’t exist. So everything here is wrong.
B) That aside, the fact that they had every single character conveniently:
Pair up
Fall in love, and
Essentially move in with each other within one week of meeting (except for racist caricature Angry Grandma, of course)
just goes to show what a terrible pile of garbage the Lifetimeverse is. Each movie is mashed into a gingerbread cookie-cutter existence, with ham-fisted characterization and absolutely no depth whatsoever. In theory this could be nice, because it’s quite wonderful (especially during the holidays) to zone of out of your cold existence and into something warm, light, and fluffy for a brief respite, but there’s a line here, folks, and we’ve gone so far over it that we’ve crossed a fucking continent. You know that when you’re torn between what’s worse—Christmas dinner with your Trump-loving uncle who angrily calls you a libtard for saying climate change is real, or watching one-more-fucking-second of one of these movies—you’re in seriously dangerous territory.
3. Watching these movies is like drinking a lukewarm glass of 2% milk. It’s so fucking bland. Again, nothing actually happens. Characters might be sad for a brief moment, but literally everything they’re sad about will be charmingly resolved in way that wholly benefits them. Illness? Nope! Heartbreak? Get outta here! A dangerous storm? Fuhgeddaboudit! Every corner in the Lifetime verse is blunted with infant-friendly plastic covers. The guy always gets the girl, and the girl always gets the weird Ginger from Dartmouth. Whatever you want comes true in the Lifetimeverse, just in a muted, rated-PG style that always makes you feel slightly frustrated, slightly suspicious, and slightly dirty.
Until next time!
