Right from the get go I had a warm fuzzy feeling about this movie because the cast was so familiar.

You have Marion Ross - Mrs. Cunningham from Happy Days, Beth Broderick - Aunt Zelda from Sabrina The Teenage Witch, and Richard Karn - Al from Home Improvement. For me, this is a great cast and they do a good job, which isn't too surprising as the story is well written and directed.

The only drawback of the movie is the "love story". Unfortunately, it doesn't work. The relationship between Sara and Dr. Reed is erratic, at best. There doesn't seem to be much chemistry in their relationship, however, it all works out by the end credits - it is Christmas after all. They'll probably be separated by New Years.

Apart from that, it's an enjoyable movie, great to watch while it's cold and raining outside.

I put this as background while I was setting up the Christmas Tree and i'm so glad I didn't put 100% of my attention of it because this was bad.

So, same plot as always: granddaughter goes home during the holidays because Grandma had an accident. Grandma forces daughter and granddaughter, who had been apart for a while, to spend time together while doing the typical activities of the season.

This was sad. I mean, the story itself was cute, it was about family and the romance was only the secondary plot. But, there was no chemistry, bad acting, bad direction. The whole thing was bad. Besides, they commit a felony during the movie and we are just gonna let it slide?

If we compare, Hallmark movies are Oscars worthy compared to this.

Over the past two years or so, my Christmas film completest quest (made up for primarily those from Hallmark and Lifetime) has been very interesting but also hit and miss. Some were very charming, easy to digest and lovely watches with good casts, providing that one doesn't expect too much. Others were very dull, cheesy, too sentimental and badly written and acted with excessively predictable and thin stories (due to doing nothing new with familiar formulas).

Unfortunately, 'A Perfect Christmas List' is one of the films in the latter category. Have actually seen worse Christmas films overall, but what could have been a decent warm-hearted film turned out to be anything but with nearly everything falling as flat as one can get. 'A Perfect Christmas List' is not a complete and utter disaster as there is one performance that stops it from being so, and lifts it to a very weak film with many terribly executed elements.

That good performance comes from a charming and perky Marion Ross.

Also thought that the production values were quite nice, especially the scenery.

Everything else fails. The rest of the acting is a mix of looking ill at ease to shameless overacting. Despite his part not being massive, Richard Karn does grate from trying far harder than he needed to and it does stick out. Didn't find myself caring for most of the flimsily fleshed out to the point of dullness and stale stereotypical characters, with only Ross' having much spark or rootability. The romantic chemistry is practically non-existent and the romance itself in writing is completely charmless and strained, not to mention very underwritten.

Furthermore, the music is too loud and too much of one mood. The dialogue continually sounds awkward, and is very cheesy and over-sentimental too. The pacing is sluggish (direction likewise),especially in the over-stretched middle act. The story is very thin and predictable, the final third is of the kind that has a contrived dramatic situation and ends on a very pat note. The lack of warmth and charm is noticeable and the Christmas spirit didn't seem there either, it all felt bland. Do agree that the theft scene was very out of place and brought a temporarily mean spirited edge to the story.

In conclusion, weak. 3/10.