I may have shed a few tears at the end of this one. Although a little over the top for most of the movie, Lynn Whitfield bought it home in the final touching scenes. The other great thing about this one was the male love interest. The actor was so appealing playing normal looking guy in his 40s who was popular with and respected by everyone from the rich and influential to the humble and normal people. Because he was just such a mensch.

Erica Durance plays a recently widowed mother of a young son trying to work through her own grief and help her boy. Unfortunately, she has the wrong end of the stick as far as her strategy and her son doesn't want to open up to her because he doesn't want to hurt her feelings. She runs a small boutique architectural firm specializing in remodeling businesses and homes. She is very disorganized which we see immediately because of the pile of unopened mail on the desk and won't delegate to her very competent employee who has been with the firm from the beginning. I hate inexcusable incompetence so she got on my bad side right away. (her employee takes it upon herself to take care of the mail near the end of the movie and she finds a $5000 check the business is owed!) She has a very ugly jealous encounter with Lynn Whitfield over her son's opening up to her and not herself. In the end, she did redeem herself and overall she was a nice woman and good at the creative end of the business, so I did forgive her.

I find it very difficult to watch actresses of a certain age who have sabotaged their ability to convey emotion with facial expressions because of the Botox and fillers. Sadly, Erica Durance has succumbed to this common practice. I know that sometimes these actresses are between a rock and hard place and are under a lot of pressure to take care of that forehead or whatever. But I find it too distracting. It's all I can look at when it is so obvious and takes me right out of the movie.

I cannot believe that I'm saying this but for me there was too little Christmas in here. The story is actually ok, but it could have been so much more. The acting was off, especially from creepy neighbour lady. At certain points, her acting was freaking me out. This could have easily gone over to a horror movie where neighbour lady gains the trust of the boy and got rid of the mom because she misses having a kid in her life or whatever. The christmas theme was for me not enough to bring the whole thing together. This could have easily been for thanksgiving, or any other 'special day' where she would have liked to have her grandson there and surprise surprise he made it!