Christmas Next Door

Like all Christmas movies they are no different then one's at Valentines day. Except for the obvious exception in holidays. I'm not a fan of holiday movies but I've been watching quite a few during this pandemic. This wasn't too bad but definitely not my favorite. I couldn't focus on it very long. I did notice the House looked very familiar that Eric lives in. It's the same house as the movie Chloe with Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore.

At the beginning Eric was annoyed at April because her violin students distracted him from his writing. He turns up his music which in turn annoys her. When the street is shown, the houses are not connected, and later Eric says to somebody that April lives 2 houses down from him. Somebody dropped the ball there! As a reviewer early said, watching the violin playing was cringeworthy. I think my dog could have done a better job than the actress. The story was typical light romance from Hallmark and I enjoyed it.

Fiona Gubelmann and Jesse Jesse Metcalfe have great chemistry. Their flirting is sparkling.

Otherwise, this is pretty much a run-of-the-mill Hallmark Christmas movie. There's nothing wrong with that, just no great highs or lows. The conflict is one of the old standards - misinterpretation of something witnessed. The movie uses most of the usual Christmas activities. Both of the leads inspire the other to big things.

Like so often is the case, kids add to enjoyment.

Here we get an antithetical romance between Jesse Metcalfe--who we first saw and came to like in the Dallas sequel-- and Fiona Gubelmann.

Jesse plays a successful author of lifestyle books for single men, and he lives his lifestyles, adding authenticity to his work. He's also not a big "holiday guy".

He gets saddled with his niece and nephew leading up to Christmas, and is a real fish out of water in handling kids. His neighbor (Fiona) helps out even though she and Jesse don't get along that well.

A funny bit throughout the movie is someone continually placing Christmas decorations in his yard, and his frustration when he gets rid of them and they reappear.

It's well worth a watch, and we've seen it more than once.

Well I liked this, I thought it was warm, with some nice laughs along the way.

Nice to see some non standard Hallmark actors pop up in the lead too.