I was pleasantly surprised by the pleasant surprises in this Hallmark movie. At the beginning, I was waiting for the boyfriend to make a rude remark about Christmas, or cancel a date because he was too involved in his work, or complain about real Christmas trees dropping needles--you know, all the deadly sins of the Original Hallmark Boyfriend. I thought for sure that something like that would happen so Samantha could fall in love with the delivery man (played by Andrew Walker) and later learn that he is the king of a small country that none of us ever heard of.
Instead, the original boyfriend turned out to be a nice guy who was devoted to Samantha and her family. Furthermore, while there were issues between them (primarily Sam's fear of commitment), they didn't have that misunderstanding which occurs around the 1:35 mark and could be resolved in two minutes if they'd just have a conversation, and then, of course, they manage to work everything out seven minutes before the Big Kiss and the end of the movie. The relationships, problems, and conversations in this movie seemed more like real life.
This movie simply didn't follow the traditional Hallmark formula, and for that, I give it a couple of extra points. Kudos, too, to the casting: Nikki Deloach and Lisa Durupt really looked like sisters. I enjoyed this movie and hope to see more Hallmark movies that contain the warmth we expect from Hallmark while not being quite so paint-by-the-numbers as some of them are.
