It's that time of year again

UPDATE - want to search for a Christmas movie and see how I rated it?  Then use my new spreadsheet with all the movies watched, to date, and my ratings, along with links to find out more. Go to the spreadsheet →

The 15th of November has come round and it's time to kick off my annual Christmas movie a day marathon. Ok, so not really annual as it's only the second year I've done this.

​Last year I managed to watch 63 movies (18 in November and 45 in December).

This year I'm introducing my yarn🧶​rating of how good it is to watch multiplied by the ability to watch whilst pursing your favourite yarn / thread / string activity.

71 = Total Watched To Date
23 = November
48= December​

I want simple films where there a strong, independent woman goes to a small town, meets a wonderful man (usualy a widow with an adorable child; extra points if he is able to carve things using a blunt spoon), she saves Christmas for the town from evil conglomorate / spiteful woman / machinations of nasty person, there is a confusion over something so she and wonderful man fall out, but it comes together at the end and everyone is happy.

Or a violent film where things get blown up.

​I'm happy with either.

November - The films watched:

• Wednesday, 15th November - A Castle for Christmas (Netflix) 🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶- worth watching it includes knitting 
• Thursday, 16th November - Best Christmas. Ever. (Netflix) - 🧶🧶🧶those pesky Christmas brag newsletters come back to bit two familes
• Thursday, 16th November - A Cinderella Story, Christmas Wish (Netflix) - 🧶🧶teen comedy musical but good enough fluff to watch with cocoa and a biscuit
• Friday, 17th November - Chateau Christmas (Hallmark) - 🧶🧶a world renown pianist receives a scathing review and her Christmas concert is canceled due to issues with the buildin so what can she do but return to Chateau Neuhaus with her family.  She reconnects with her ex-boyfriend who just happens to be putting on a Christmas concert with no star.  A case of let's do it right here!
• Friday, 17th November - A Cookie Cutter Christmas (Amazon) - 🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶two school teachers have been rivals since childhood.  I liked this so much, when I watched it in 2021, that I actually bought it to watch last year.
• Saturday, 18th November - Last Train to Christmas (Sky) - 🧶Michael Sheen travels through time as he goes back and forth between the carriages on the train to Nottingham.  Watch out for the hair styles included Cary Elwes with a red wig!
• Saturday, 18th November - Christmas in the Highlands (Amazon) - 🧶🧶🧶Captain Kirk's brother is the Earl with a perfume to die for whilst an American perfumier tries to get closer to him and the scent as she films a fake documentary.  Filmed predominately at the late Queen Mother's childhood home, it's an opportunity to enjoy the magic of Glamis Castle.
• Sunday, 19th November - Christmas at Castle Hart (Hallmark) - 🧶🧶🧶🧶 What could possibly go wrong when two out of work waitresses from New York tell an Irish Earl that they are famous party planners?  Well not the party because that is a hit until the planner they are impersonating turns up.
• Monday, 20th November - Falling for Christmas (Netflix) - 🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶Linsey Lohan trying to put on a fitted sheet. Classic.
• Tuesday, 21 November - Holiday Date (Hallmark) - 🧶🧶🧶🧶When you break up with your boyfriend just before Christmas and think it's a good idea to take a actor home to pretend to be him.  The actor is researching 'small town living' for his next role, your parents are obsessed with Christmas, he is too ... but it turns out that's because he's never celebrated it as he's Jewish.  Lost one yarn ball in my rating because the 'it's all going to go wrong' was a little too much for me.  I can't do any films or tv shows where you know something is going to happen and they make you wait for it (it's called Checkov's gun).  This is different to a suspenseful movie, think of it like this; I can watch a film noir such as Key Largo but I could never watch Some Mothers do 've 'em, as a kid.
• Wednesday, 22nd November - A Christmas to Savour aka Serving up the Holidays (ITVx or Amazon) - 🧶🧶🧶🧶A chef is forced to add Christmas inspired dishes to her menu in order to keep her restaurant open.  So she goes back to cookery school to find out the true meaning of Christmas food ... and love.
• Thursday, 23rd November - A Christmas Retreat (Paramount+) - 🧶🧶🧶🧶A women whose boyfriend has broken up with her and a man who has been passed over for promotion both go on a Christmas Retreat and learn that there is more to life than working every hour.
• Friday, 24th November - A Glenbrooke Christmas (Paramount+) - 🧶🧶🧶When the stress of being the CEO of a multinational company becomes too much, an heiress goes to Glenbrooke for one last Christmas where her childhood memories were made.  Of course, there is a hansome Fire Chief!
• Friday, 24th November - Christmas in Washington (Paramount+) - 🧶🧶🧶Watched this last year so now it's time to rate it and give some feedback.  When she gets the gig of a lifetime, decorating an embassy, a designer finds that she needs to teach the new Ambassador what Christmas truely means.
• Saturday, 25th November - Violent Night (Sky Cinema) - 🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶Do not, and I repeat, do not mess with Santa. I've always liked David Harbour as an actor and it's good to see how well he carries this film.
• Saturday, 25th November - Christmas in Evergreen (Hallmark) - 🧶🧶🧶🧶I first watched this last year and realised that there are now four Evergreen set movies.  They are perfect for chilling out to and knitting. Not to be confused with 'An Evergreen Christmas'.
• Sunday, 26th November - Christmas In Evergreen: Letters To Santa (Hallmark) 🧶🧶🧶🧶Amongst all the other themes of this film, I was struck by the search for where a key fitted.  It's only a small part of the story but the idea that it's as much fun to look as it is to find.
• Sunday, 26th November - Christmas In Evergreen: Tidings of Joy (Hallmark) 🧶🧶🧶🧶For once, a Christmas film where the two people that it centres on admit that staying in the small town all year isn't for them.
• Monday, 27th November - Christmas In Evergreen: Bells Are Ringing (Hallmark) 🧶🧶🧶🧶Finally Hannah gets to be the centre of the action when she has been the one helping everyone else.  And there is knitting and she says it helps to quieten her mind.
• Tuesday, 28th November - Christmas on the Coast (Amazon) 🧶🧶🧶🧶What could go wrong when you use all your friends as characters in your books?  
• Wednesday, 29th November - Next Stop, Christmas (Hallmark) 🧶🧶🧶🧶 Groundhog day meets sliding doors.  What could have been and what should have been.
• Thursday, 30th November - Nantucket Noel (Sky Cinema / Hallmark) 🧶🧶'Evil' real estate developer will ruin Christmas by builing a waterfront building ... just days before Christmas.  I had hoped to be blown away by views of Nantucket but it turns out this was filmed in Canada.
• Thursday, 30th November - A Muppet Christmas Carol (Disney) 🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶 An obvious 5 yarn rating.  This film is not only a great and faithful retelling of the classic Christmas story, it was the Muppet movie to be made after the death of Jim Henson (creator) and Richard Hunt (performer).  The only real deviation is that there is an extra ghost - there are two Marley brothers played by Walfof and Statler.  And it also has Michael Caine.  What more could you want.

December - The List watched so far:

• Friday, 1st December - A Very English Christmas (Paramount+) 🧶🧶🧶 Been together 9 years so let's get married in 2 weeks just in time for Christmas and drag your half sister from the US to plann it.
• Saturday, 2nd December - Genie (Sky Cinema) 🧶🧶🧶I'm giving this a begruding 3 yarns score as it's more a 2½. This script, by Richard Curtis, is a retelling of his 1991 TV film Bernard and the Genie starring Lennie Henry and Alan Cummings (the later makes a cameo appearance).  I'm not sure if it's because I have seen the previous version, or because the story or style feels a little Déjà vu, but it does feel a little tired.  However the scene where Bernard allows his family to each have 3 wishes is well done and they, quite literally, try to send each other to hell.
• Sunday, 3rd December - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Disney+) 🧶🧶🧶🧶I'm teniously adding this in as Christmas is mentioned and Father Christmas appears but it's still tenious because, in Narnia, as Lucy says, 'it's always winter, but never Christmas, think of that!'  Sumptiously filmed, this is a story from my childhood, read each night, before bed.  I still have the box set that I was given for my Seventh birthday.  The teenage me saw the obvious Christian symbolism in it, and replaced the stories in my heart with Shadowlands.  But now, nearly 40 years since I first read it, once again, I can enjoy it for what it is.  Now, where did I put that Turkish Delight?
• Monday, 4th December - Family Switch (Netflix) 🧶🧶🧶This is very teniously a Christmas movie as it's set at Christmas but doesn't really have any references other than songs and the first scene.  Had it just been done as non Christmas movie I'd have give it 4 yarn score.  Freaky Friday with a twist that it's the whole family.
• Tuesday, 5th December - Catering Christmas (Netflix) 🧶🧶🧶This one is more a 3¾ yarn symbols for knitting and a 3 yarn symbols for movie story.  A caterer mistakes the nephew of a famous philantropist for her temp chef but still gest the job (and the fudge).
• Wednesday, 6th December - The Fabric of Christmas (Paramount+) 🧶🧶🧶🧶An almost perfect Christmas film.  It has a dashing fire chief, snow, a Christmas Wedding and quilting.  What more could you ask for.
• Thursday, 7th December - Open by Christmas (Hallmark) 🧶🧶🧶🧶No, it's not a great movie but it is one to sit and knit by.  So this is kind of a 3¾ yarn symbols for both knitting and story so I'm giving it 4.  A Christmas card that has lain unopened for 20 years.  But who sent it?
• Thursday, 7th December - Candy Cane Lane (Amazon) 🧶🧶🧶🧶This year's Amazon Christmas movie with Ed Murphy, who gives a really good performance in this.  An evil Christmas Elf, Pepper, Godmothered's Jilian Bell, is tricks Ed Murphy into signing a pack where if he doesn't find five golden rings and defeat Pepper, he and his family will be turned into living figurines in Pepper's shop, just as others had been, before him.  As Pepper says; What's Christmas without a little terror!
• Thursday, 7th December - Four Christmases (Amazon)🧶🧶I had fond memories of this film and was looking forward to revisiting it but boy has it not stood the test of time.  We all know that the key thing about Christmas movies is that people decide that love is what matters the most but underneath all of the storylines is the fact that people deserve to be happy.  Watching this film again and you realise that none of the people in it, let alone the two main characters, are very nice.  They are all bullies and narcisists.  Sometimes, it's better not to revisit old favourites!
• Friday, 8th December - The 12 Dates of Christmas (Amazon) 🧶🧶🧶🧶Of course she isn't stalking her ex a year after they broke up, again and again and again.  Ground hog day meets Christmas.  What makes this film work is that with 12 reruns of the day, Kate finally gets to experience minor successes and major messups.  It's of a similar vintage as Four Christmases but has worn better with time as the characters do have redeming features.
• Friday, 8th December - Noelle (Amazon) 🧶🧶🧶🧶With the wonderful Anna Kendrick as Kris Kringle's daughter and her brother, Bill Hayden having an existential​ crisis, what could go wrong?  And it has Shirley McLaine in it too!
• Saturday, 9th December - Charming Christmas (Hallmark)🧶🧶🧶🧶The thing that struck me about this film is that it's all about listening to people and understanding what they truely want.  Yes, we have the successful women who gets with the right guy, but along the way, people talk and those that love them listen.
• Saturday, 9th December - Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane (Amazon)🧶🧶🧶🧶It's not Christmas without an Alicia Witt Christmas movie!  This was one of the first ones with her that I watched.  It also has the Sheriff from Eureka in it.  What is there not to love.
• Saturday, 9th December - Spotlight on Christmas (Amazon)🧶🧶🧶🧶Perfect for knitting (infact, that's exactly what I was doing).  Redemption comes in giving back is one of the messages but the other is how people value you for who you are.
• Sunday, 10th December - Last Holiday (Paramount+)🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶Queen Latifah is mistakenly given 3 weeks to live and decides that instead of putting dreams into her Promises book, she will live those 3 weeks to the max.  A gentle, understated performance that is still magic.
• Sunday, 10th December - My Favourite Christmas Tree (Paramount+)🧶🧶🧶🧶When you have no family you make your own traditions.  A historian tries to help all around her and ends ups finding her own roots.
• Monday, 11th December - A Royal Queens Christmas (Hallmark)🧶🧶🧶Good middle of the road film about loving people for who they are, not what they are.
• Tuesday, 12th December - Five Star Christmas (Sky Movies) 🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶This was actually made all the better by the ensemble cast.  Shows what can happen when you let your family pretend to be guests at your empty B&B in order to impress a possible critic.  They decide to live the lives they want include Grandma becoming European royalty.  This one is going on my annual watch list.
• Tuesday, 12th December - Chrsitmas at the Holly Inn (Channel 5)🧶One review of this Brit Christmas Romance described it as a Micro Budget and that is putting it politely.  Even the wonder Colin Baker and Anita Dobson couldn't save it.  Let's just say that the publicity photo on imdb is better lit and warmer than the film.
• Wednesday, 13th December - Christmas Next Door (Hallmark) 🧶🧶🧶- Who wouldn't be a Scrooge at Christmas when experience tells you that you have a Christmas curse.
• Wednesday, 13th December - Holly & Ivy (Hallmark)🧶🧶🧶🧶 - A woman becomes close to her neighbour who has just received a terminal diagnosis.  Agreeing to take on her neighbour's two children she and a local contractor show people what true kindness is.
• Wednesday, 13th December - Christmas in Vienna (Hallmark)🧶🧶🧶🧶 - I first watched this last year when it brought back memories of our honeymoon.  Yes, it's cheesy but it still a favourite.
• Thursday, 14th December - Christmas at the Chalet (Paramount+) 🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶- What could go wrong when Terri Hatcher ends up spending Christmas at a Chalet with her son, ex-husband and his new girlfriend.  In order to get a room, she volunteers to work at the chalet and keep her followers up to date with things, well her son said that she could be an positive influence to women over 50.  As I said, what could go wrong!
• Thursday, 14th December - Christmas on the Alpaca Farm (Paramount+)🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶 - who cares if it's any good.  It has jumpers and yarn in it.  What more can I say?
• Thursday, 14th December - Meet me at the Christmas Train Parade (Paramount+)🧶🧶🧶🧶A small town mayor rallies the surround towns (and their mayors) to prevent the Governor's fiendish plans to bring in big corporations for tourists and drive out the small businesses that make the towns so special.  And there is a steam train.
• Friday, 15th December - The Christmas Promise (Paramount+) 🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶People cannot replace what you've lost but connections, on a human level, could be the answer.  When loss is too much to bear, how do we find a way to live?  ​
• Saturday, 16th December - A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe (Channel 5)  🧶🧶🧶🧶Grandma has died and her secret cookie formula has been stolen.  The cookie company will close.  .... but there are lots of cookies to be made along the way.
• Saturday, 16th December - Christmas in the Highlands aka Christmas in Scotland (Channel 5) 🧶🧶🧶🧶Mum has lied to you all these years and she is the Duchess of a castle in Scotland.  Yep, that's not how British Aristocracy title function but it's good fluff to knit by.
• Saturday, 16th December - Christmas at the Plaza (Channel 5 / Hallmark)🧶🧶🧶🧶I first watched this last year on 20th December.  My notes from then still stand: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s, Simmons finds out that there is a lot to learn about Christmas tree toppers.
• Sunday, 17th December - A Nasville Christmas Carol (Hallmark)🧶🧶🧶🧶Wyonna Judd reminds all of us that caring for people is essential to a happy Christmas.
• Monday, 18th December - Christmas Incorporated (Hallmark)🧶🧶🧶🧶When you get the job of your dreams but you realise that they thought you were someone else ...
• Monday, 18th December - Homemade Christmas (Amazon)🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶You are the go-to person that people call upon with their Christmas Emergencies, but what if a toy business needs saving and you were just there to dress the tree.  A case of mistaken identity but with soul.
• Tuesday, 19th December - Check Inn to Christmas (Amazon)🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶Your parents have been at war for 100 years but there is one thing that they hate more than each other, that's a major hotel resort coming in and putting everyone else out of business.  On that, they can be united.
• Tuesday, 19th December - Mistletoe Promise (Amazon)🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶A pair of Christmasphobic strike a pact to try and love Christmas again.  No PDAs and only holding hands if the situation really requires it.  What could possibly go wrong?
• Tuesday, 19th December - A Very Yorkshire Christmas (Channel 5) 🧶🧶🧶When an American Soprano turns up in Knaresborough by accident, she finds what has been missing from her life.
• Tuesday, 19th December - Christmas in Notting Hill (Sky)🧶🧶🧶In a reversal of Notting Hill, an American Special Needs teacher lands in Notting Hill and doesn't recognise the 'World Famous' English soccer player, who just happens to be the half brother of her sister's boyfriend.
• Wednesday, 20th December - A Snow Globe Christmas (Amazon)🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶A grumpy Alicia Witt gets a bang on the head and is trapped in a snow globe perfect version of Christmas.  One of my favourite Alicia Witt Christmas movies.
• Wednesday, 20th December - Snow Globe (Amazon)🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶 How can you resist a family who think Christmas food is a green lasagne?  Great little movie.
• Wednesday, 20th December - A Christmas Contest (Sky) 🧶🧶🧶With the chance to win $50k for their favourite charity, a divorced couple come up against each other in this movie of Christmas challenges.
• Wednesday, 20th December - Fatman (Amazon)🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶So good, we bought it last year. A hitman is sent to take out Santa ... only Santa is Mel Gibson
• Wednesday, 20th December - A Christmas Number One (Sky) 🧶🧶🧶Probably the world's worst boyband rip off a kid's Christmas wish and her uncle's #1 hit record. Watch to the end for the tongue in cheek song videos
• Thursday, 21st December - Christmas in Scotland (Paramount+) 🧶🧶🧶🧶Forced to take some time and decide what she wants to do with her life, an installation designer takes the opportunity to go to Scotland with her father and trace their roots. The village looks more like Scotland during Puritan rule, so she slowly wins the Village and it's Laird over to take part in the annual Christmas Village decoration competition. Slow and thoughtful - perfect to knitting to.
• Friday 22, December - 'Twas the night before Christmas (Sky / Hallmark) 🧶🧶🧶An actress takes a break from TV to direct a mock trial in order to discover the true author of the poem. She didn't reckon on the spirits of the two supposed authors battling it out in her theartre
• Saturday 23, December - This is Christmas (Amazon) 🧶🧶🧶🧶🧶Christmas movies are often about second chances but what if your life is a train crash? When you are sabotaging your life what would it take to give yourself a second chance? Kate keeps bumping into Tom who seems to want to bring a sense of purpose to her life
• Sunday, 24 December - The Bishop's Wife (Amazon) 🧶🧶🧶🧶Cary Grant is the angel that David Niven needs but doesn't want. 
  
• Sunday, 24 December - Dating Santa (Amazon)  🧶🧶🧶What would it be like to date Santa? A blind date with a chef goes well for a single mum but she has to convince her daughter that he is Santa. This film is dubbed but done quite well so great for knitting to.

On the list:

• Love Actually (Amazon) - always the one for Christmas Eve
• It's A Wonderful Life (Apple TV)
• The Shepherd (Disney+) a new telling of the Frederick Forsyth Christmas Ghost story
• The Santa Clause (1, 2, 3 and clauses) (Disney+)
• Arthur Christmas (Amazon)
• Christmas with the Kranks (Amazon)
• Christmas Eve (Amazon)​
• Last Christmas (Amazon)
• The Santa Claus (Amazon)
• The Christmas Chronicles 1 & 2 (Amazon)
• A Christmas Candle (Amazon)
• ​The Bishop's Wife (Amazon)
• Godmother (Disney+)
• A Charlie Brown Christmas (Apple TV)
• Sound of Music (Disney+) OK I know it doesn't have Christmas in it but its always on at Christmas ... maybe I should add the Great Escape too.
• Bell, Book & Candle (Amazon)

Want to see some inspiration?  Then check out this wiki list of Christmas films

Tried but failed:

• Christmas in the Caribbean (Freeview) Stephanie Beecham is at her waspish best as the mother of Elizabeth Hurley who is jilted by Ray Feron, but just couldn't get into it