Trading Christmas

This is a truly funny Christmas movie, mostly due to Tom Cavanagh, whose crusty author with writer's block drives half of the story and provides most of the chuckles.

The movie provides travel mix-ups aplenty, and Cavanaugh's half of the story is a perfectly done antithetical romance.

The other half of the story has amusing moments, but is mostly straightforward and sweet.

The romances work, the comedy works, and the stories work.

Watch for Cavanaugh, and be entertained. :-)

Recommended.

LOVED this film....ESPECIALLY loved characters played by Faith Ford and Gabrielle Miller....perfect film for the holiday season! Myself, my mom and sister really enjoyed it. A real feel good film, it made you want to bake cookies and decorate your Christmas tree! And the cast excelled with solid performances...hoping this is going to become a holiday tradition, like watching A Christmas Story or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer! In this day and age, it's refreshing to watch a film of this quality. Nudity, drugs, sex, and violence do not always have to be included in a film for it to be successful. OR, touch a heart....and Trading Christmas DELIVERS! Kudos, cast, crew, and Hallmark! :)

BEWARE OF FALSE REVIEWS & REVIEWERS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW TO THEIR NAME. NOW WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE MOVIE. IF ITS A NEGATIVE REVIEW THEN THEY MIGHT HAVE A GRUDGE AGAINST THE FILM . NOW I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 200 HOLIDAY FILMS. I HAVE NO AGENDA. I AM HONEST

In this film Emily is disappointed her daughter Heather won't make the cross-country trip from Harvard to visit at Christmas. Emily decides to surprise Heather and trades houses with Charles Brewster, a college professor who lives in Boston. Emily is the one who is surprised when she finds out her daughter left for Florida with her boyfriend and has only Charles' brother for company. In this holiday tale about twists of fate, Emily and Charles find love at the most unexpected time and have the best Christmas season ever.

This is a very enjoyable film. I love the fact that in reality there wasn't a nasty person in the cast. It was nice to see a "CHRISTMAS THEME" film that wasn't a variation of "A Christmas Carol". The casting for the most part is great and the various story-lines are 60% plausible. I thought it was interesting to have various locations and climates to show how "Christmas" is celebrated in different parts of the country. (More should have been done with that angle)

It is nice to see a film where you do like everyone in it and you are rooting for love for everyone.

It is nice to see a FAMILY SAFE FILM that isn't a cartoon.

This was a fun movie with likable characters and a good story. It's hard not to like Faith Ford and the characters of Charles and Faith Kerrigan were so fun together. Ray was a good guy too although he was a bit stoic. This is one I watch several times during the season if I can.

Though I do recall seeing this many years ago, I found this more engaging second time around, perhaps not noting its merits on first viewing.

Here we have a clever plot with three strands, which sees two disparate couples finding romance unexpectedly after last-minute change of Christmas plans in the USA - where the characters are all based in different states.

The main plot has the romance, the subplot has the comedy and the third plot involves Emily's daughter, who's a bit annoying but whose own romance proves to be a useful distraction from the romance and the comedy of the two main romantic stories.

The two romantic leads have superb chemistry - I wondered if anything developed off-set? A nice factor here is that these two characters contrast strongly and live completely different lives which may explain the added frisson to their unexpected romance.

Apparently this is based on the same story that was used for the A-list screenplay 'The Holiday' with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz. I've seen that and I can assure you this TV film is vastly superior, in that it is far more engaging than that big budget Hollywood movie.

The romance is right, the comedy is right - it works, and rookie romcom writers would do well to keep this one as a standard to aim for.

Though made in 2011 (TV films seem to have a shorter shelf life than theater movies) this will play on some channel a few times each yuletide.