Movie Review: Christmas at Pemberley Manor

As Christmas approaches, Elizabeth Bennett, a New York event planner, is sent to a quaint, small town to organize their holiday festival. When she arrives, she finds William Darcy, a high-profile billionaire lacking in holiday spirit, in the process of selling the charming estate she hoped to use as a venue. Determined to make her event a success, Elizabeth persuades the reluctant Darcy to let her hold the festival on the historical estate once known for its holiday cheer. When they wind up working together to arrange the festivities, the unlikely pair begins falling for each other. But when complications arise and the festival is unexpectedly shut down, the couple parts ways and Darcy moves forward with his plans to sell the estate. On the night before Christmas, a wistful Elizabeth hopes for a Christmas miracle to revive the festival, save the estate and rekindle her holiday romance.





I have a confession. When it comes to Jane Austen, I'm team Twain. Never liked her writing style. That being said, I think the interpretations of Austen's works have been creative and give her way more credit than she deserves. Here were my thoughts on Christmas at Pemberley Manor.

When it comes to Elizabeth, it was love at first binder. I can appreciate a well organized woman who can make her event planning company succeed, without any prior knowledge of an event, with a single binder.

Elizabeth goes into a small town to meet her spineless and flaky friend the Mayor and his assistant, Jane. Let's be real, Jane is the one actually running the show here.

Later on, Elizabeth, Mayor, and Jane meet Mr. Darcy and his assistant, Travis. Travis may not be at Binder or Town Running level when it comes to being an assistant, but he does his best and follows through.

Now, my favorite pairings for this movie are obviously Travis and Jane, because they are adorable together. But also Jane and Elizabeth. Pairing relentless positivity with plain old relentlessness is a sure recipe for taking over the world.

The last thing I have to say is there was only one cliche that bothered me: the guy who looks like Santa is Santa. Is it too much to ask for our two plucky assistants to be the North Pole agents?

Overall, this movie did pretty well! 4.5 candy canes!

Movie Review: Operation Christmas

As her new romance blossoms, a single mother is dismayed when her boyfriend, a military sergeant, is deployed right before Christmas. Determined to not let it ruin the holidays for her and her children they decide to give back to the struggling military families on his base and, as their efforts go viral, they are rewarded in ways they never imagined.

First of all, we have Olivia. Shes a single mom with walls up--totally understandable, she has two kids to think about and can't go off falling in love with someone who might abandon them. So can anyone really blame her for keeping them up for a while, even after a completely reasonable explanation for why she was ghosted? 

Aside from that, I loved how the kids decorated for Olivia's date. Granted it's completely impractical and you can't really move around in any kind of comfort, but look how CUTE it is!

This movie puts a welcome emphasis on Family, from Olivia's sister helping her with guidance, laughter and probably babysitting to Scott's mother also helping him with basically everything.

A great Christmas tradition is introduced in this movie, giving each member of the family a handmade ornament with their name and the year on it for the tree.

This movie almost didn't make me cry, but then it totally did. A full 5 Candy Canes to this one!