‘TOYING WITH THE HOLIDAYS’ IS ONE FUN & CUTE ROM-COM

Teaming up two frequent TV Christmas movie stars for their first pair up proves to be pretty good. Toying for Holidays, aptly named, follows a young career woman named Danielle “Dani” Prescott (Cindy Busby), who is readying to make the drive home for Christmas. Though she’s recently back to her home state, she still lives a few hours away from where she grew up, but this Christmas, she’s taking her son, Paul home to the place all of her childhood memories are tied up.

Upon her return, she learns the town no longer runs the North Pole express train her father once spearheaded during their Christmas festivities. With some determination and the assistance of her former high school classmate, Kevin (Chad Michael Murray), Dani determines to change this!

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Watching the movies on Lifetime this year is even slimmer than those on Hallmark. Not sure why, but I just haven’t watched many (at all) on the network. Perhaps because I was laser focused on seeing enough of the Hallmark titles (in order to write an interesting enough ranking post) that I simply shut these out. Or maybe, it’s that I don’t think many of these really seem good. That said, I did play Toying with the Holidays and as usual, it’s pretty dang cute.

Cindy Busby and Chad Michael Murray are not strangers to the TV film, but I don’t think they’ve paired up before; and I did enjoy them together. They don’t have dynamic chemistry, but it’s above norm in that it feels “comfortable” and sweet, which is a plus. The plot has sweet messaging about family and good insights into what hard work fueled by determination can do. Murray is good again in the leading role and you’ve probably all seen Busby in something, whether that’s Hallmark or the Canadian drama Heartland.

If you like the genre, again, you’ll enjoy this one. There’s plenty good here and most of the time, the script doesn’t pick the “easy” normal trope route, which I can appreciate.

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Content: this one is the norm of TV-G content.

Photos: Lifetime