“Where Are You Christmas?”: Christmas Makes the World Brighter

Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas is in full swing and has been since October 20th. As they do every year, they introduce many new movies to add to their collection and I like to try to review at least one before the New Year.

And here it is!

We start with the classic trope of hardworking city woman returns to her small town and learns the true meaning of Christmas while falling in love. But there is a twist in how she learns her lesson.

My world is changing/I’m rearranging/Does that mean Christmas SPOILERS

Summer Movie Round Up

Hard to believe it’s already September! It feels like it was just Memorial Day and here we are, getting ready for spooky season and then the holidays.

But before we speed toward 2024, let’s pause and reflect on this past summer.

Namely, the movies.

It was a good summer for movies. I started at least three reviews but never had the time to finish them. So I’ve decided to just do a round up of my thoughts about each movie.

Here we go!

(Beware possible spoilers under the cut).

The Wedding Veil Legacy: Food, History and True Love

We’ve seen a beautiful Italian lace veil originally made for the wife of an Italian nobleman bring love to a museum curator and an art history professor. Now it is in the possession of their friend, who works at an auction house. She is firmly a skeptic in the veil’s alleged power to bring the owner true lover Will she change her mind?

Of course she will. It’s a Hallmark movie.

How does it happen? Find out in The Wedding Veil Legacy!

I’m so glad you found me in time/And I’m so glad that you’ve rectified my mind/This will be an everlasting SPOILER!

The Wedding Veil Unveiled: A Story of Love and Loss

The story of three friends and their beautiful and possibly magical veil continues in The Wedding Veil trilogy. After the first friend found love, a rare painting reveals there may be more to their veil than meets the eye. Now the second friend has possession of the veil as she heads to Italy, ready for an adventure of her own.

But is she ready for love?

Time to find out in The Wedding Veil Unveiled!

I’ll be your hope, I’ll be your love, be everything that you SPOILERS!

The Wedding Veil Trilogy: The Wedding Veil

Christmas may be Hallmark Channel’s bread and butter but it produces movies all year round, often timed to the different seasons – winter movies after Christmas, spring movies as the weather warms, summer movies for the hottest months and then autumn movies before Christmas comes back around again. While I tend to watch more of the Christmas movies, I do like to check out the channel’s other fare and I must say I was intrigued by the idea of The Wedding Veil Trilogy movies – The Wedding Veil, The Wedding Veil Unveiled and The Wedding Veil Legacy.

The Wedding Veil trilogy surrounds three friends who meet up every so often to go antiquing together. On one of these trips, they find a beautiful wedding veil. According to the shop owner, anyone in possession of the veil will find true love. The friends decide to split the cost and buy it, vowing to wear it at their weddings. One by one, the veil brings them love and happiness.

Uniting three of Hallmark’s leading ladies – Lacey Chabert, Autumn Reeser and Alison Sweeney – this movie trilogy certainly got 2022 off on the right note.

We’ll go movie by movie, so let’s start with The Wedding Veil!

You smiled, you smile, and then the spell was cast/And here we are in Heaven, for you are SPOILERS!

The Royal Nanny: A Fun Christmas Adventure

It’s that time of the year again! Yes, it’s Hallmark holiday movie time! And of course, I’m watching them. They’re comforting and festive. No one can resist their charms.

Especially me, as you all know.

I don’t know how many of the new movies I’ll be able to review. But I’m going to try, starting with this one set in England.

So, grab an umbrella and avoid SPOILERS!

Walt Disney World: Trip 2 Report

I’m back from my second trip to Walt Disney World for this year! And just like I promised in my last post, I have some more to report and comment on so let’s get it started!

Weather

It was hot.

I don’t remember our last trip in June being that hot. It felt more like August than June and I pretty much had to do laundry when I got back because I sweated through everything.

Most people in Disney had fans or cooling towels. My sister got us these nice fans we could wear around our necks. I could just leave it on and let it blow up at me or hold it against my face. It was a godsend.

Even on some rides! I read that many suspect that Disney is not fully utilizing the air conditioning to save money and I would believe it. Sometimes I was sweating inside on some rides, such as Spaceship Earth – and not because we were stuck near Rome “burning.” But there were other places where it did allow you to get comfortable but it still wasn’t as cool as I’ve experienced in the past.

Walt Disney World: A Round Up of My Thoughts

Several years ago, I did a countdown to a Disney trip I was taking by writing something about the park each day for like 100 days. It was massive and I think I had to backdate a few posts but I did it!

However, it was several years ago and Walt Disney World has made a lot of changes since then.

I recently got back from Walt Disney World and I thought I would discuss my thoughts on some of the latest changes and additions to the parks.

Here we go!

2021: A Wrap Up

I hope 2022 finally brings us that new normal we've been waiting for, one where we can live our life even with COVID still among us but without the fear of a surge. 

In 2021, I made 56 posts to this blog. And I went back to look at the view counts to find my top 10 popular posts so I can count them down. 

So let's begin! 

The Nine Kittens of Christmas: Cute Kitties Solve Everything

Merry Christmas! I hope who celebrate are having an amazing day filled with loved ones, fun, gifts, food, music and movies. We’ve made it through another year and have reached my last Christmas movie of 2021. While I’m not sure I’ll be doing these monthly in 2022, I’m sure I’ll have more to write about throughout the year.

For now, we’re going to finish 2021 with one of the new movies Hallmark introduced this year, which is a sequel to one of their 2014 movies – “The Nine Lives of Christmas.” I’m fond of it so I was very excited to see it got a sequel and wanted to know what happened to the characters.

Let me just quickly recap the first movie: Firefighter Zachary and Vet Student Marilee cross paths after he ends up inheriting a cat named Ambrose. They develop a friendship that blossoms into something more as Christmas approaches but they both have their own issues to work through in order to be together.

Presents and cards are here/My world is filled with cheer and you/This SPOILERS!

“The Christmas Carousel”: Art Can Bring Magic

It’s November, everyone! And I know this is coming out on Thanksgiving, so Happy Thanksgiving!

But we’re in the final countdown to Christmas. Hopefully you aren’t tired of Christmas movies by now since Hallmark has been playing them for almost a month.

So we’re close to wrapping up our movie recaps/reviews for this year. And I hope you can look back and put together a good Christmas movie marathon now.

And we’re going to add another one to that list – The Christmas Carousel!

Lullay, thou little child/Sleep well, lully, lullay/And smile in dreaming SPOILERS!

The Spirit of Christmas: A Ghost Story for Christmas!

Happy (almost) Halloween!

Since it’s the spookiest month of the year, I thought this movie was appropriate. It’s a ghost story, you see. But it’s also a romantic movie because it’s a made-for-tv Christmas movie. Most of them are romances, let’s be real.

(Speaking of which, Hallmark has already started to air their movies. How many have you seen already?)

Anyway, let’s check out this ghostly yet romantic Christmas movie!

They’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glory of SPOILERS long ago! 

Welcome Back, Phantom!

Raise the chandelier once more on Broadway's longest running musical - welcome back, Phantom of the Opera! 

Let the music of the night live on! 

Happy Opening Night, Six!

 Best wishes to the Queens and crew of Six the Musical on their opening night! 

They were supposed to open on March 12, 2020 - the same day Broadway had to shut down due to COVID. But now they are back and ready to tell their stories! 

Can't wait to see the show! 

“On the Twelfth Day of Christmas”: Everyone Loves a Good Secret Santa

We’re three months to Christmas!

I should probably start shopping…

Anyway, my recaps of different made-for-TV Christmas movies continues with this classic from Hallmark. It combines a Secret Santa with the 12 Days of Christmas. And who doesn’t like that?

So let’s check this one out!

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me – a partridge in a SPOILER!

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist: We Need a Little Christmas

It’s official! Zoey Clarke and her family and friends are returning to The Roku Channel this holiday season for “Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas.”

Creator Austin Winsburg has confirmed the return of several cast members: Jane Levy (Zoey), Skylar Astin (Max), John Clarence Stewart (Simon), Alex Newell (Mo), Mary Steenburgen (Maggie), Michael Thomas Grant (Leif), Kapil Talwalkar (Tobin), Andrew Leeds (David) and Alice Lee (Emily). Also confirmed to be returning are Peter Gallagher (Mitch), David St. Louis (Haskins) and Bernadette Peters (Deb) – who is nominated for an Emmy for her role as Deb! No word yet about Morgan Taylor Campbell (Morgan) and Noah Weisburg (Danny Michael Davis) or if Lauren Graham (Joan) will also manage to stop by as well.

(I do hope at least Campbell comes back. And I also hope the stars align for Harvey Guillen to return as George. He recently revealed that there had been plans for him to appear in Zoey’s Extraordinary Birthday where it would’ve been revealed that getting fired was the best thing for him. Unfortunately, COVID and scheduling conflicts kept him from appearing in that episode. I hope we can still see that and what better time than Christmas?)

An'ther Op'ning, An'ther Show!

Four of the biggest shows on Broadway return to the Great White Way tonight! Wishing everyone at The Lion King, Hamilton, Wicked and Chicago a great show! 

And Lackawanna Blues opens tonight! Best wishes to the cast and crew! 

Curtains Up, Light the Lights

Hadestown and Waitress the Musical have returned to the Great White Way tonight. 

Break a leg to the casts and welcome back to Broadway!

The Christmas Waltz–Dancing Through Christmas

I caught this movie during the recent Christmas in July movie marathon on Hallmark. And I absolutely fell in love with it. So I’ve decided to recap/review it.

So put down your lemonade and sun hate, don your Santa hat and grab some eggnog and enjoy a sweet little Christmas story.

It’s that time of year/When the world falls in love/Every song you hear seems to say/SPOILERS!

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist: A Savior Appears!

Call it Zoey’s Extraordinary Revival!

‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist’ Renewed at Roku for Season 3, Movie | TVLine

Well, that season 3 isn’t a done deal so that headline is a bit misleading. Sorry, it’s not mine but TVLine’s.

True to his word, creator Austin Winsburg and Lionsgate has continued to shop Zoey around to find a new home. And Roku seems to be the one who is willing to give it a chance to at least wrap up if not live on. They’ve ordered a movie to be released during the holiday season. If it does well, Roku may then order additional episodes and give us a Season 3 after all!

So if you don’t have access to Roku and want to watch more Zoey, go get access to it! I have a Roku, it’s how I watch my streaming services, so I’m good to go. And I do recommend it to anyone who is interested.

There has been no official confirmation but it’s likely they are waiting to confirm the cast. They had all been released from their contracts a couple weeks ago so now the production company has to negotiate new ones for them. But I’m sure most will be willing to return, it’s just going to be hammering out the details – especially with the promise of new episodes hanging in the air. They will most likely have to figure out agreements for the movie as well as what happens if Roku does approve a third season.

I must admit I’m excited! Even if all we get is a wrap up movie, at least that’s more than other shows have gotten and we can get some closure.

But I really do hope we get a season 3 after all!

So what do I wish would happen? Well, I was thinking about this recently and I would like to share my thoughts. And since it’s my blog, I can!

(I miss Galavant too)

First, I hope we get answers on why Max heard Zoey’s heartsong in the finale. Did her powers transfer to him? Are they contagious and have spread to him? Or are her powers evolving and now she can let others hear her heartsongs?

All three could lead to some great storylines – how does Zoey help Max adjust to powers while possibly having lost hers? Could Zoey “infect” someone else? Or will someone else find out Zoey’s secret because she sings to them?

Personally, I would prefer option #3. I think it’s time another person learns Zoey’s secret. I thought they were heading toward Simon learning it during this past season but that didn’t happen. And since I still feel as if the finale served as a wrap-up to Simon’s character, I don’t think he’ll be the next one to learn her secret – unless it is a way to keep his character involved in the story.

(Once again, I hope not. As much as I loved Simon and John Clarence Stewart, I think the finale was a suitable endpoint for him and if he comes back, it’s just as a guest star here or there).

So who do I want to find out next? At first, I wanted it to be Maggie but then I realize I want it to be Leif. I think that would be interesting. First, it would give him the answers about why Zoey knows what he’s thinking. Next, I think he would want to use Zoey has a way to commit corporate espionage without anyone knowing but Mo, Max and Zoey have to constantly explain her powers don’t work like that. I really think it would open up some good storylines – and I could see Mo and Max having some fun with Leif, like making him do some super embarrassing things and calling it a ritual to join the group of those who know about Zoey’s superpowers.

(But then I want it revealed at the end that Maggie’s known for a while but thought she was going insane because David and Emily couldn’t hear Zoey sing).

Anyway, I’m excited about this news and I’m so happy we’re getting more Zoey!

How about you? Are you excited for the Zoey movie? If so, what do you want to see? Let me know in the comments below!