This is hardly the perfect movie, but I found myself enjoying it a lot. It's fun, different and kind of quirky. I think the thing I enjoyed most was that it was such a departure from the perfect, idealized world of Hallmark Christmas movies. The kids weren't polite and well-behaved. The teen daughter was so annoying that you just wanted to confiscate her cell phone and throw it out the window. The young boy was so bratty that you wanted to sit him in the corner for a timeout. The mom was so stressed out that you wanted to strap her down to a massage table, just to have her chill out. Only the dad was kind of normal and reasonable. You felt for him, as he tried to deal with his obnoxious family.

Then you had the small town. It certainly looked like it could have had the potential to be charming and quaint, but from the get-go, they successfully portrayed it as the dying ghost town that it was. The town's denizens were not necessarily perfect, warm, fuzzy people you meet in Hallmark Christmas towns. The characters of Samantha the waitress and Coleman the mechanic were certainly likable enough, but they were much more down-to-earth, real and unattractive than you might expect from Hallmark. The other town characters, from the silent cafe patrons to the grumpy mayor to the angry toy shop owner, were all weird and disagreeable. It made for a much more interesting palette of characters.

I liked how the family changed, just by being in the town. The town didn't necessarily do anything to earn their love. They just got to know the people and became involved in their lives. Just having them involved in the town's pathetic Christmas pageant helped them in their character arcs. I also liked how the pageant wasn't this amazing production, but more like the amateurish effort you'd expect from a small, dying town.

The ending seemed a little too pat and unrealistic. So, the dying town's dilemma of bringing in new economic activity is magically solved by having Mr. Benson unexpectedly provide them the loan to set up a ski resort on their beautiful mountain because, coincidence of coincidences, he just happens to be the owner of a bank! The least they could have done was make a more compelling case that this was a good business decision for him, and that he saw it as an investment on which he expected to make a profit, rather than having him do it because he felt sorry for the town. But, hey, it's a Christmas movie, so you are willing to cut them a little slack.

All in all, an enjoyable Christmas movie. Just enjoy it for what it is, without too much of a critical eye.