Barbara is newly retired and really into keeping the house clean. She decides to join a Christmas committee. The meeting is supposed to start at 9:00 AM, but when she arrives, no one is there. Ten minutes later, the group leader, Cath, shows up and says, “Oh yeah, it’s a flexible 9.” The rest of the committee arrives, and they’re quite the characters. Barbara is clearly annoyed by this fly-by-night committee. When the opportunity arises for her to head up the committee budget, she jumps at it, but she’s shocked to discover that Cath has just been keeping the receipts in a literal shoebox.

We meet Barbara’s son, Shane. She thinks he is lonely, so she wants to find him a date for the holidays using an app called Holiday Matchmaker, which she signs him up for without his approval.

Then we meet Cath’s daughter, Lauren, and wouldn’t you know it, her mom also signed her up for the same dating app. They end up getting paired together.

Lauren and Shane meet for coffee, but it doesn’t start well. Shane overhears Lauren talking to a friend, complaining about going on a blind date her mother set her up for. However, they end up hitting it off while discussing their mothers. Shane tells Lauren he plans to sell his theater business, but he’s feeling super stressed. To keep their mothers off their backs, they agree to pretend to date for the holidays.

Unfortunately, both moms want to meet their children’s special someone. They decide to meet at a Christmas festival, and they’re both clearly disappointed that their kids ended up together. They conclude that the only logical thing to do is sabotage the relationship.

So Barbara and Cath quickly devise a plan to break them up. After learning that Shane isn’t very handy, Cath has an idea: invite him to help pick out a Christmas tree with her and Lauren, forcing Shane to figure out how to get the tree on the car himself. However, the plan backfires when Shane and Lauren end up failing together. When they finally get the tree home, they discover there’s a rat inside. Shane is terrified of the rat, but Cath asks him to get it out, which he does, impressing Lauren. Plan failed.

Next, Barbara comes up with another idea: invite Lauren to one of Shane’s shows. She hopes Shane will get upset if he thinks Lauren is pushing for the relationship to work. Plus, Lauren has bad stage fright, so when Shane invites her on stage for a quirky improv Christmas Carol, Barbara is excited. To her surprise, Lauren ends up having fun and is really impressed with the show.

When their plans don’t work, Barbara climbs through a window to convince the volunteer playing Santa to come out after he locks himself in a room because he’s scared. Cath and Barbara work together to encourage him to get out there.

They realize they make a pretty good team and need to work together to break up these two lovebirds. They decide to start hanging out, acting like they love each other, and really push this “big happy family” narrative in hopes of freaking Shane and Lauren out. However, they notice that Shane and Lauren might actually be good for each other—Lauren encourages Shane to go all in on theater, and he helps her step out of her comfort zone.

While on a trolley, singing Christmas carols, Shane and Lauren both admit they’re actually falling for each other and agree to go to the Christmas Ball together.

Barbara finds out that the relationship is fake but assumes it’s one-sided to get her off Shane’s back. She tells Cath, who gets really mad and advises Lauren to break things off with Shane because he’s a bad guy.

At the ball, everything comes to a head when Barbara and Cath confront Lauren and Shane about the fake relationship. Lauren freaks out and ends things with Shane due to all the drama. Barbara and Cath start arguing at the ball, and Barbara quits the committee.

Barbara’s husband, who hates being around her during this turmoil, encourages her to fix things with Cath. They make up and decide to work together to get Shane and Lauren back together.

Cath shows up at Lauren’s workplace to apologize for meddling, and Barbara does the same with Shane.

Lauren and Shane decide to give their relationship another chance, and they kiss! The families then spend Christmas together, which seems a bit fast. They kiss some more and sing songs.

Alonso Duralde & Dave White did the hard hitting work and watched the first 2 episodes of Finding Mr. Christmas. Today, they give their thoughts on this hot, new Christmas reality show!

The movie kicks off at the initial wedding, where Jackson is dancing with his daughter, Betty, and Betty drops a bomb—she's moving to Italy with her mom. Jackson is pretty miserable. He runs a firm that represents social media influencers, like a guy who just eats soup. One day, he gets a call from his ex asking if Betty can come and stay with him for a while, and he's like, “I got a better idea—I’ll come to you!” He goes to Italy and gets a red convertible, 'cause why not? He almost hits a woman named Gabriella. I'm sure he'll never see her again, though. Except he does, 'cause of course she runs a café that doesn't serve cappuccinos in the afternoon. They continue to bump into each other, and friction turns into sexual tension. He even builds her a new website. But Jackson is like, “Nothing is going to happen between us.” He is a bit hesitant to love since he's been there, done that, and got divorced. The boys come to visit, and they go to a masked dance. The boys are like, “Go out there, dance with someone.” He is hesitant but does end up dancing with a masked stranger, and it is hot, hot, hot. He even dips her! It's a moment. But he leaves before finding out who she is.

The next day, they're at the café, and Gabriella slips and almost falls, and he catches her, dip style, realizing that it was her he danced with. He talks to her about it, and she's like, “Sorry, I didn't know it was you.” The next day, he's walking with Betty, and Betty tells him that he's not dating for any other reason than being scared, and it's not fair to either of them. The following day, Gabriella brings over some lasagna, and he offers to drive her home. The car breaks down, so they end up walking back to the city, and he opens up about everything. She tells him that she knew it was him all along during the dance. They are about to kiss, but the sprinkler turns on, and everyone knows you can't kiss while wet. He joins her for dinner at her father's house, and at the end of the night, he's like, “I'd love to make this work, but it just doesn't make sense.” She's like, “We'll always have that dance.” He realizes that he done goofed and decides that he's going to stay! They kiss!

Cut back to the narrator of the story—it's Betty. Milo shows up and tells her that he's loved her since they were kids. They get married. Everyone gives so many speeches, Then they all dance. And FINALLY, the groomsmen do there special dance again.

Charlotte is a chocolatier who recently moved to Vienna with wild ideas, like putting potato chips into chocolate. She's at a fundraising event surrounded by many Christmas trees. Also at this event is Henry, who doesn't know much, but he knows you don't put potato chips in chocolate. Charlotte is trying hard to win Vienna's Chocolateer of the Year. If she wins, she thinks it will be a lot harder to lose her shop to a developer who's trying to buy it. And who is that developer? Henry. Everything is looking good for the €300 million development, except for Charlotte's shop—she is fighting it tooth and nail. Henry doesn't know about that, though, because he doesn't want to know the details. He just wants to be on holiday!

He leaves a meeting to walk through the market and bumps into Charlotte again. They end up walking around the city together, having a great time. They eventually return to her chocolate shop, and she gives him some chocolate to remember her by. On his way out, he hands her his card. The next day, they bump into each other again, and he asks her if she wants to get dinner. She says she always has time for food. They go out and talk about their dreams and whatnot, which gets Henry thinking: is he actually doing what he loves? He knows that Charlotte is.

He finds out that Charlotte is fighting off a developer, and he thinks, "Let me see what I can do to help you." He asks his associate to look into Charlotte's business to see what they can do to help her fight off the developer as a historical landmark. What Henry doesn't know is that the associate is the one trying to fight her on the historical landmark. So instead of helping her, she serves Charlotte with paperwork claiming eminent domain. Charlotte is like, "Over my dead body!" She is ready for war! And she's going to ask Henry to fight with her!

She shows him the paperwork, and it all clicks in—he's the bad guy in this story. He could come clean to her, but he doesn't want to. Instead, they go ice skating and decorate a Christmas tree. He calls his dad to get his advice, and his dad says he should just pay them off and get it over with. They do offer her more money, but she's not having it. She decides to look into this company to see what she can use to fight against them, and it's at this point that she discovers Henry is associated with them.

So she barges in and tells him to shove off! Henry feels all mopey. She's looking at pictures and comes across a photo of her grandma with her best friend, who still lives in Vienna. So she goes to visit them, and luckily, she has a picture of them in front of the building before the special date that makes it historic, so she has proof.

Henry's dad shows up and tells him he's sorry for being a sucky dad and that he wants to help him figure out a way to make things work with Charlotte. So he puts together some cool blueprints that will allow her to keep her shop while also letting them do their development. She's like, "I need some time to think about it. Might as well waltz."

She eventually tells him that she's in, and they kiss. Then they talk about it, and she says she's in again, and they kiss again. And then there are fireworks!

11/6 - Meet Me Next Christmas

11/13 - Hot Frosty

11/20 - The Merry Gentlemen

11/27 - Our Little Secret

12/4 - That Christmas

Watch on Philo! - Philo.tv/DTH

ft. Alonso Duralde, Jacklyn Collier, Patrick Serrano, and Ryan Pappolla

When a priceless antique nutcracker, set to be auctioned at the Warby family Christmas charity goes missing in an unfortunate suitcase swap, it is up to exacting event planner, Lottie Morgan and the free-spirited heir to the Warby dynasty, Tristan, to track it down, all while capturing the heart and spirit of Christmas.

Watch on Philo! - Philo.tv/DTH