This is one of the better Hallmark movies I've seen. It was part Christmas story, part romance, part caring teacher story, and none of these was overdone or sappy. Jason Gedrick was excellent in his role as Evan, the somewhat unconventional teacher, a former bad boy turned good, who wants to make a difference in the lives of his young charges. He portrays well an educator who is caring, yet firm, a man who clearly carries a deep, hidden pain, but who would never let that get in the way of his mentoring the kids who need him.
I liked the interactions between the three "Christmas orphans", also. Richard Harmon is excellent as the bad boy Andrew. He is sufficiently dark, with just enough vulnerability to let you sympathize with him and know that he is more a tortured soul than a truly evil kid. I liked his character arc. Doing service at the Wishing Tree and unexpected friendship from Albert and Juliet, the other Christmas orphans and Evan, of course, turned him around and helped him feel truly sorry for his actions.
Andrew's conniving mom was sufficiently nasty to create a good villain, but I'm glad she didn't remain that evil, one-dimensional stereotype. In the end, you saw that deep down, she was a caring mother who wanted the best for Andrew, but who had gotten off track somewhere along the way.
The romance between Evan and fellow teacher Clarissa was probably the weakest element of the whole story. It wasn't bad, necessarily, but I think they tried to cram too many plot elements into one story. The story of the caring teacher and his students would have been compelling enough, without trying to add the romance and the pain of a tortured widower. There was insufficient time to develop that part of the story. Also, I felt like Clarissa came on way too strong. Her efforts in pursuing Evan bordered on stalking.
If there were one other complaint that I had, it's that the whole Wishing Tree angle wasn't played up enough. We needed some compelling backstory why Andrew, and, to a lesser extent, Evan, were not fans of the Wishing Tree. Maybe they had made wishes on it that hadn't come true, at least in their eyes. Also, it would have been good if Evan had made wishes for the three Christmas orphans, which then came true due to his influence and the influence of the kids on each other. And maybe Clarissa could have made a wish for Evan to be able to move on from his painful past. It's implied that the best Wishing Tree wishes are those made for someone else. The characters should have utilized that tree, even if they doubted its efficacy.
I feel like this movie was probably based on a book, and that the length of a movie was insufficient to do the book justice. Nevertheless, this was a very well-done, heartfelt movie that gave us compelling characters that we cared about, and that steered clear of a lot of the schmaltz that so often plagues Hallmark Christmas movies. I highly recommend it.
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