Christmas Next Door

Christmas hating, greazy looking author of bachelor lifestyle books (the still alive John Tucker, aka Jess Metcalfe) is forced to find the formula for holiday cheer when he gets stuck watching his little niece and nephew as December 25th approaches. Fortunately, his spunky, violin toting neighbor bleeds red and green (Fiona Gubleman of "Wilfred"), and she's more than happy to share her holiday mojo to give the kids the Christmas they want, and turn Uncle Scrooge's attitude 180 degrees in the process. As stupid a detail is, it's called Christmas Next Door, but she doesn't live next door, she lives two doors down. I guess Christmas Two Doors Down doesn't have as good a ring to it. But the thing I keep wondering was, why would they make it a point to get the age-comparable man and woman off on the wrong foot by having them perturbed by each other's noise, as if they're separated by thin walls, when in fact there's an entire house between them. But it's a Hallmark Christmas movie and the physics of sound waves don't mean a god damn thing. What's more important is the mathematics of the love triangle. We all know who's gonna win out, especially when our pixie girl's rival is a lifer bachelorette who seems to hate kids. And these kids aren't going anywhere: they say never work with animals or children because they'll get all the attention, and truer words were never spoken than evidenced here. These kids steal every scene as they show uncle slickback the December what's what, draw Gubleman into his life, and drive the nemesis ice maiden insane. This the most laugh out loud Christmas Cheddar flick in recent memory, Christmas factor is off the scale, and Gubleman and the kids rock the house. Totally excellent and tied for the top spot of Hallmark's 2017 Countdown to Christmas. An MSG fav.