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Thursday, 1 December 2022

Festive offerings on the small screen

Tis’ the season to hunker down with a warm cup of chocolate and a movie. Critics sniff at holiday-themed movies and often with good reason. But as the major streamers have learned, many of us can’t get enough festive content — and they’ve accordingly put on a veritable feast of Christmas corkers this year. Here are our favorite picks for the best new Xmas movies to watch this month.

Lindsay Lohan returns to the small screen with Falling For Christmas, this year’s must-watch holiday rom-com. This Netflix original is all Christmas cheer — with a dash of reality for those youngsters who measure their worth by number of followers. Lohan plays the role of a spoiled heiress to-be who’s married to an influencer. She believes her life is perfect, until — brace yourselves — she gets amnesia from a skiing accident. Forgetting everything including her own name gives Lohan’s character a second chance at life and love. If you think it sounds like hackneyed, sentimental garbage with a Lohan-shaped cherry on top, you’d be right — and that’s why we’ll be glued to our screens.

Spirited is set to be another huge hit this Xmas season. Will Ferrel and Ryan Reynolds bring us a Christmas family comedy musical, capturing the holiday spirit with its winter wonderland-like backdrop and merry carols. Ferrel plays the Ghost of Christmas Present. He takes Reynolds on exciting adventures, through which they learn from each other and develop a new respect for the holidays. You can watch it on Apple TV.

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol is another merry movie dropping on Netflix. This animated adaptation of Charles Dickens' altogether darker novella brings adventure, comedy, drama, and fantasy. You know the drill: Grumpy miser Ebenezer Scrooge transforms into a wiser and kinder man with the help of a ghost visitor and learns to view Christmas with childlike joy.

The Noel Diary is a Netflix original feat. our favorite This Is Us actor, Justin Hartley. The American rom-com follows Hartley’s famous author Jack Turner as he returns to his childhood home to visit his mother on Christmas. He ends up opening doors from his past in the hopes of helping Rachel, a young woman looking to find her mother. They embark on a journey of self-discovery together, and — not much of a spoiler alert — fall in love in the process.

Groundhog Day meets Workin’ Moms in Christmas on Repeat. Jennifer Taylor plays Andrea, an advertising professional and mother who gets stuck working on Christmas day. In comes Santa to grant Andrea a wish — which turns out to be a nightmare. This workaholic mom finds herself stuck repeating the day over and over again as she struggles to figure out her work-life balance, in a conceit lifted straight out of Tom Hanks’ 1993 classic. But we’ll forgive Hulu for wanting to turn every holiday into Christmas.

Super light holiday romance Christmas With You is soothing fare after a long day at work. Aimee Garcia stars as pop star Angelina, who decides to fly to New York on Christmas to surprise young fan Christina, and gets more than she bargained for. Christina teaches Angelina the blessings of being part of an ordinary, non-famous family — and as chance would have it, Angelina falls slowly but surely in love with Christina’s widowed father.

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