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The Hallmark+ streaming service rolls out the second ‘Cherry Lane’ sequel … or is it a prequel … this week with the premiere of Happy Holidays from Cherry Lane. As with the first two movies, this one also takes place in three different decades all set at Number 7 Cherry Lane (boy, this house has had a turnover in residents … is the place haunted, cursed?). As with the previous Season’s Greetings from Cherry Lane, the new film features one couple from the original Christmas on Cherry Lane movie, Regina and Nelson, though they aren’t a couple just yet (which definitely makes this one a prequel).
In the first story, chronologically set in 1960, married couple Eli (Benjamin Ayres) and Penny (Erica Durance), along with their son Alex (Noah Bromley), take in Eli’s dad Walter (Serge Houde) after he suffered a fall on their icy porch, giving him a place to recover so he won’t be alone at his own house (his wife died a few years earlier). The problem is that Eli and Walter have never seen eye-to-eye and the two constantly butt heads, something that puts Penny in the middle of that relationship because she gets along fine with Walter. Things come to a head when Alex has a class project to complete — burying a time capsule containing items important to the family at this time of year. The first issue is the wooden box Eli provides, which Walter insists will not survive seven years underground (and is seven years really a decent amount of time?), so he gets a galvanized steel box … from somewhere … and they begin to gather a few items. But when an old Christmas clock that belonged to Eli’s mom turns up, something that Walter has been searching for for years, the rift between them grows and only Penny can repair it before Christmas is totally ruined.
The second story returns us to 1998 where we met Regina and Nelson in the first movie. There they were about to marry and move to Florida over the objections of her adult children, but this time Regina is still single and the kids are out of town and unable to return due to a snow storm. Instead, family friend Ivy and her husband are keeping Regina company on Christmas Eve because their flight out of town is delayed. As Regina tries to prepare some food, a water pipe bursts somewhere causing the kitchen faucet to spray water everywhere. As it’s Christmas Eve and there’s a snowstorm raging, getting a plumber is nearly impossible but a good Samaritan hears the call and shows up to help, even if he is a contractor and not a plumber. This is how Regina and Nelson meet. Nelson does manage to provide a temporary fix, but when he attempts to leave, his truck won’t start and it will be hours before he can get a tow due to the storm. Ivy gets the notification that their flight will be departing, so they leave and Nelson offers to wait in his truck until the tow truck comes, but Regina seems to feel a little spark and asks him to stay inside where it’s warm. They end up watching Miracle on 34th Street and Regina falls asleep on Nelson’s shoulder, only to be awakened by the return of Ivy as the flight was cancelled. Regina is shocked and embarrassed that she fell asleep on a stranger’s shoulder and was discovered by her close friend. Luckily, the tow truck has arrived and Nelson can escape the awkward situation, but he suddenly returns because he figured out what caused her water issues — a galvanized steel box.
Story three takes place in 2015 as Jessie (Julie Gonzalo) suddenly has her sister’s Christmas Eve wedding day thrust upon her when the venue that is to host the event is suddenly shut down … with all of Beth’s wedding stuff locked inside, including her dress, decorations and cake. The last thing Jessie wants to do is host a Christmas Eve wedding in her back yard, especially when he learns the officiant is her high school flame Tim (Ryan Rottman). As Beth slides into Bridezilla mode trying to make her wedding the Christmas extravaganza of the century, Jessie and Tim are forced to work together a dance around their past. Things finally come to a head when Jessie finally tells Tim that he broke her heart when he broke up with her, but Tim is shocked by this because the way he saw it she broke up with him when she announced that she was going to a different college than they had planned (they were supposed to go to the same college but she decided to go to one a continent away). She apparently did have a chance to say she was willing to make long-distance work before he said it was over, and that left them both with emotional scars. But reminiscing about their first date — which wasn’t a date, but a break-in at the high school where Regina was principal (and in her segment she gets a call about kids trapped in the gym while trying to retrieve a wooden reindeer) in an attempt to get Tim’s dad’s Christmas present that he left at school, they just might be willing to put all that aside and rekindle what they once had.
Happy Holidays from Cherry Lane, which Hallmark+ seems to have just dumped on the service with little fanfare and zero publicity for press outlets to access, is stretching the Cherry Lane story thin, and there’s one more movie to come! The Regina and Nelson story was very confusing at first because it takes place just a year earlier than the original movie’s story (and if you didn’t remember the year that makes it all the more confusing) and you’re left scratching your head as to why Regina and Nelson don’t know each other. I initially assumed this was continuing their story and they decided to stay put but this was their relationship origin story. Not sure if the snowstorm storyline was introduced because the actors playing Regina’s kids weren’t available, but not having them around was also a bit confusing. At least they managed to get Ivy. Bell was very good again as Regina, but Denton’s Nelson is written just a bit over-the-top and bit too familiar to be a complete stranger. But despite the sometimes hackneyed writing, the two still have chemistry that obviously carries over from the days on Hallmark’s Good Witch series.
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Ayres and Durance (and I’ve been a fan of hers since her days on Smallville as Lois Lane) are fine as the 1960s couple, with Durance delivering her lines in the best June Cleaver way, which also lets us see that women will always save the day. The acrimonious relationship between Ayres and Houde gets a little frustrating because so many could have easily bee solved if their characters just spoke to each other. But this story is about how ‘father knows best’, and in reality neither of them could admit that perhaps they didn’t. The plot device of the time capsule was interesting, but how much could change in seven years, especially when the items they were adding were already old (except for the family picture taken … somehow by someone).
The best segment of the movie featured Gonzalo and Rottman. They really gave their characters some life and even without knowing their backstory at first, they still felt like they had a history. Their story also had some much needed humor as they dealt with Beth and attempting to break in to the facility where her stuff was being held hostage, a moment that we learn harkens back to their high school days when it was they who Regina got the call about on Christmas Eve 1998. Dani Alvarado played Beth to Bridezilla perfection, so much so that you just wanted Jessie to put her foot down and tell her that there would be no wedding in her yard. Gonzalo and Rottman really made this the most enjoyable of the three stories and rescue this from being a one-star review.
The ‘Cherry Lane’ films are built upon the concept of a linking narrative, one that was expertly crafted in the original movie that tied all three stories together in a mind-blowing way. The second movie barely attempted to tie things together, only using the character of Daisy as a true linking device. This time the 1960 story is linked to the 1998 story with the box, while the 1998 story is linked to the 2015 story with the high school break-in, but 2015 has no connection to 1960. And even though she appeared in both of the earlier films, Daisy is nowhere to be found in this one, only given a quick mention in a throwaway line that you’ll miss if you aren’t paying attention. Let’s hope that the third and final sequel manages to bring Daisy back and tie up this story (and maybe explain why 7 Cherry Lane has had so many inhabitants over the years since this neighborhood is supposedly so idyllic and everyone loves this house so much). To date, Happy Holidays from Cherry Lane is the lesser of the three film, despite some decent performances and a bit of clever storytelling with the linking devices, but it’s not destined to become a Hallmark holiday classic.
Happy Holidays from Cherry Lane has a run time of 1 hour 24 minutes, and is rated TV-G. The film is streaming on Hallmark+.
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