While I think this movie has a terrible title and also I do not like the subplot about the owners of the inn and their connection to the real life Santa Claus, this move works much better than the standard Christmas fare. In large part, as has been noted this is due to the main actors who are both very good actors (and actually will someone give Andrew Walker a non lifetime / Hallmark movie? He has earned it). Bethany Joy Lenz and Walker play fellow reporters at an online magazine. As you do, they live in their own little work world hardly even knowing each other until they are pitted against each other at Christmas, tasked with writing a story or losing a job. Both are determined to win but get diverted from their original location to the small town of Santa Claus Indiana. While there they get to know each other they fall in love. Without giving too much away these stories typically do not have enough plot to establish a real feeling relationship but this did and the actors sold it pretty well. There is one sour note right at the very end but still the vast majority of the move is worth it.
