Gingerbread Miracle | C

Hallmark Channel Premiere | November 5, 2021

Santa's wife is Mary? This is just wrong...

In this movie, Maya lives in her parents' garage apartment and wears sweatpants while she lawyers on Zoom. (This hits a little too close to home, Hallmark.) Her sister also lives at home, and their parents are fine with this. Love interest Alex lawyers in New York City, but his uncle is getting ready to sell the family bakery, so he comes home to help. While Maya and Alex work together on the sale, they rekindle their old high school romance, and both discover that they are happiest working as little as possible. In the end, Maya turns down an in-person lawyer job so she can continue wearing her pajamas (was this movie sponsored by Zoom?), and Alex stays to keep the bakery in the family.

This movie was classic Hallmark with the added 2021 elements of working from home, finding that life/work balance, and wearing sweatpants on Zoom. I expected to hate the magic cookies, but that was actually one of the better elements. Aside from the cookies, the plot and characters were pretty flat, and I kept looking for the fast-forward button.

It sure would be nice if I knew what he was singing....Thanks for covering up the subtitles, Hallmark.

Hallmark gets an A on: the Brita water filter (I haven't seen one of these in years!); the dog; Las Posadas; the cookie wishes

Hallmark gets an F on: covering up the screen when we need to see subtitles; putting way too much significance on the red briefcase; CGI snow

Grade: C

* Note Grading Scale:

A = This is seriously a good movie. It will remain on my DVR for the season.

B = Totally exceeded my expectations. I'm happy to recommend.

C = This is an average Hallmark movie. Good holiday fun.

D = I'm disappointed... but I watched it. Why not?

F = I actually had a hard time getting through this one. And that says a lot.