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I'll confess that I thought this film was a romance and as a romantic, I was really looking forward to it. But as a hardcore George Michael fan from my teenage youth in the 80's, I was so much happier with the reality of this film which was much more about self-healing than anything else.

The dialog was fantastic, as was the acting. Which is somewhat expected with its stellar cast. The film has a Christmas theme throughout being set at Christmas with the main character Kate working at an all year long Christmas store, but beyond that there is also the message about how we help ourselves when we help others.

I really don't want to share any more, except to say that as a fan of George Michael's music, I appreciated how great care was taken in song choice and placement throughout the film. I liked that it wasn't just his top 40 hits. While Kate seemed to be a hot mess at the beginning of this film drinking heavily, having irresponsible sex and just in general hurting both herself and others...I liked her story arc. It makes for a wonderful feel good Christmas film that was an utter surprise to me and I hope others are equally pleasantly surprised. I would recommend this to others...and just did to my husband (especially after he watched the 2025 Film Jingle Heist...this is a far superior film). ((Secretly I appreciated the Croatian storyline having grown up amongst a large Croatian population of immigrants on my island.))

I'm generally a big fan of most hallmark films and I liked the idea of Mia's ideal man coming from the pages of her favorite book...but there was a little too much idealism in this film for me. Also there were wildly unrealistic aspects to the story...including the very public make-out session at a charity event. Inappropriate and unrealistic.

I loved Mia's final green dress and how her hair was done. I was unfamiliar with Kathryn Davis as an actress, but she was quite lovely. I don't think this was an acting issue, more of a script issue. Finally, I didn't get a feeling for how the other films are going to be connected to this one in the "unwrapping Christmas" series?

Overall not a recommendation from me, unfortunately.