Trading Christmas

Debbie Macomber's Trading Christmas_720p(480P)

source: Debbie Macomber's Trading Christmas

So with the Christmas season now behind us I thought I would watch an older movie. One I have seen before but not for quite some time. Boy was this a good decision. This movie was engaging from beginning to end. I didn't touch my phone once during the whole movie so that tells me alot. Emily (Ford) is a widow who's college aged daughter has decided not to come home for Christmas. Emily is a traditionalist and decides that she will do a house swap as she is sure her daughter would love to see her. Emily trades with a writer Charles (Cavanagh) who has a deadline and wants to get out of town. Emily heads to Boston only to find out her daughter isn't there at all and is in Arizona with her boyfriend. She bumps into Charles's workaholic brother Ray (Bellows) and ends up getting to know him. Meanwhile Emily's friend Faith (Miller) shows up unexpectedly to visit Faith who isn't there and spends some quality time with grumpy Charles. This movie is engaging. It has so many moving parts but that doesn't distract at all from the overall movie. It just makes it more interesting. You have two main plots and then some smaller plot lines. What is particularly well done is the development of some of these characters. In particular you have Emily (Ford) struggling with her ability to let go over the traditions she held with her deceased husband. Her struggle to move forward and carry on without him. Faith Ford was exceptional and the growth from beginning to the end where she finally does something for herself is great. The chemistry between both couples was fantastic. I admit that Gil Bellows came across as creepy at first but he began to grow on me. By the end the chemistry he had with Ford was good. As for Cavanagh and Miller, they were hilarious. They had a fun banter for alot of the movie. Yes they didn't end up together until almost the very end but I enjoyed them and watching the progression of their interest for each other. The scene where he runs into the bus to ask her to stay was amazing. One of the highlights for me was Tom Cavanagh. Tom for me will always be the Labatt Blue commercial guy! A fellow Canadian. Admittedly when I first saw him I said "Oh No" as a nod to the O'Henry commercial. I just like this guy. And in true fashion he didn't disappoint in this movie either. He was beyond grumpy at the beginning of this movie. His first interaction when the children came to see him was so funny. His comedic acting came in handy in this role and he was probably my favourite thing about this movie. OK maybe one of my favourites because I could say the exact same thing about Gabrielle Miller. Again another Canadian who I grew up watching on only one of the best comedy sitcoms "Corner Gas." She too was quick, funny and had such a great interaction and relationship with Cavanagh on screen. This movie kept me engaged the whole time. Definitely recommended and will watch again.

Fun Christmas magic with a sweet storyline. I love the change of location aspect of the story and the growth of the characters in those changes. This storyline has been stolen by the movie The Holiday, but in Trading Christmas it is more family friendly and the characters are deeper. This is worth the watch. James Welch Henderson, Arkansas 12/28/2020

Trading Christmas is an older Hallmark film which is an obvious knock off of the then-contemporary film "The Holiday." That said the film is much better than it has any reason to be. That may be because it was adapted from a novel by someone named Debbie Macomber. Many of her novels are turned into Hallmark movies. An uptight yuppie and a lonely widow decide to swap his Boston apartment for her cozy suburban home. He is writing a novel with a female character we never learn much about. She badgers her adult daughter to come home for Christmas who instead wants to spend time with her boyfriend. These characters would normally be caricatures in other movies. Here most of them have a backstory. The main guy's girlfriend broke up with him and he isn't over it. The main woman's husband died and she hasn't figured out how to process his death. The adult daughter is trying to find her own identity. The main storylines give each character enough time to bond with the lover interest character. The relationships are given time to be portrayed organically. I admire the woman's admirer who is a retired businessman. He seems like a man ready to slow down a bit and admires her sensitivity. Big city life makes women vain apparently. The film certainly plays into the channel's belief that small town life is superior to urban dwelling.

Trading Christmas is great! It's different from most Hallmark movies and is a must watch every year for me. There are of course positives and negatives, but that doesn't make the movie terrible. The romance was good. I did not enjoy the chemistry between Faith Ford and Gil Bellows. It seemed like she was trying and he was just bland. However, Tom Cavanagh and Gabrielle Miller chemistry was fantastic. They were the superior couple. Overall, it's worth the time and is very entertaining.

I loved watching the movie, but it was a bit different than the book.

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.

I really liked this film. Yes, it was almost a complete copy of "The Holiday" but without the budget or the A-list stars, but it was a good re-telling of that story. The characters were easy to associate with and they were all nice people in their own way. Nobody was irredeemable. I personally adore Tom Cavanagh, his delivery was just so fun and I could empathise with his characters need to be alone and peaceful to write. Gil Bellows came off a bit creepy, but still a nice guy and all of the leading ladies were very good too. There wasn't a huge seasonal vibe with regards to the content to fill it, but the story brought a joy and romance that was festive. There was a tree decorating or two, but it wasn't over the top. They have got to stop using Dead Christmas Trees though. The one in this should have been on the kerb at least a month before they made this film. It's a big peeve of mine when props and the other little details are not thought about properly, especially when everything else was quite well done. In theory it wasn't the standard formula that most of these TV films use, which in itself as a good thing, but it was also just well put together and is definitely one that I could watch yearly.

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.