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Writer's pictureGary Jive

Hats Off to Christmas (2013) - Day 5, Dec 30th



Though it’s freezing cold and I seriously can’t be bothered working, there’s great news today as it’s been announced that the Oxford Astrazeneca vaccine has been approved for widespread use. It feels like we can hopefully start kicking the Coronavirus’ butt and get our lives back. 

This butters me up nicely for 2013’s Hats Off to Christmas, another opposites-attract winter schmaltz-fest, with added adorable disabled children to amp up the shameless heartstring-tugging. Here, Haylie Duff is Mia, manager of one of those stores that somehow manages to subsist by purely selling seasonal festive tat all year round. Single mom Mia is raging when she is tasked with training the owner’s arrogant son Nick (Antonio Cupo) for the top job that she wants. Ouch. 

 The two of course clash over how to run things. He’s all about numbers, spreadsheets, profit, while she embraces festive cheer and the ‘personal touch’ these films seem to worship. It's interesting how the film frames the savvy numbers-oriented guy as a villain, pushing for us to get behind the likeable, but clueless woman who, in 2013, doesn’t even have a business website.



 Even though Nick is smokin’ hot, Mia despises his attitude until he turns out to have a soft side and helps her disabled  son Scott (Sean Michael Kyer) to continue physical therapy and maybe, just maybe, learn to walk again.

 This one is quite moving, but saddled with a very ‘made for TV’ feel, with the store looking ugly and unappealing and, weirdly, it all looks like it was filmed in Summer. It also suffers from an irritating, cheapy keyboard synth strings score, with tacked on sleighbell-filled crescendos to signal exactly when your emotions are supposed to kick in. It’s transparently exploitative, yet the naffness oddly makes it more fun and compelling if you can just submit to the cheese.

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