Talkie Tuesday: The Spirit of Christmas

"Twelve days isn't nearly enough."

Hello everyone!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Meaning, I'm overdoing it with Christmas movies this week. Tonight on the menu is one of my all-time favourites, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (and coincidentally the only Jim Carrey movie I can actually watch), but yesterday I was watching something else. 

You know this season is one of those when ALL the cheesiness comes out in spades, but then again this is probably one of the only times per year when it's actually allowed.

So yeah, I watched a semi-cheesy movie. Actually, talking to a friend of mine, we classified it as 'medium cheese' because, why not.

If I hadn't known any better I would have immediately said Hallmark was the one who produced it, but then Hallmark goes overboard with the cheese most of the time, and this one wasn't exactly there yet, though it was close.

All in all, however, it had a fairly reasonable female lead, a VERY good-looking male lead + glasses, and mystery!

I'm talking about The Spirit of Christmas.

How I even found this movie?

I didn't. Not exactly.

I kind of found the lead actor though.

Thomas Beaudoin is one of those guys who'd look good in ANYTHING, including a potato sack, so naturally he looks incredible with reading glasses from a hundred years ago. Ergo, I did a quick Google search, found a Christmas movie he was in, and hey presto!

Let the magic begin.

Kate, our female protagonist, has to leave Boston about two weeks before Christmas (actually, twelve days, more on this later) to go and get an inn appraised because there are no apparent heirs and the trust wants it sold. But, upon her arrival, the inn keeper tells her that he usually closes the inn over the twelve days before Christmas (because it's 'tradition') and that she can't stay there.

In other words, that if she DOES stay, he won't be responsible for what the resident inn ghost is going to do.

Said ghost having previously scared off the appraiser makes Kate furious, and she decides to stay, but of course once the ghost (who shows remarkable aptitude for modern-day security) actually shows up, she goes investigating in the dark, gets freaked out when he pops up, and has a vase land on her head, knocking her out.

Honestly, you'd think homegirl would have watched a horror movie or two.

Anyway, the sheriff doesn't quite believe she isn't a little ga-ga, especially after several calls from her and several no-shows from the ghost, who obligingly only makes himself appear for her.

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but ghosts shouldn't normally look as handsome as this one does, right?

Also, Kate can touch him, and he can touch her (which he proves by carrying her out the door), but he can't leave the inn boundary line, which adds to the mystery. The inn keeper, Walker, returns, scaring the bejesus out of all of us, and he and Daniel (the ghost, obviously) decide to explain what they know.

Which is precious little: Daniel used to own the inn back in the day (roughly 100 years ago), but he had landed on hard times, and on the way home to his fiancée on Christmas eve, he didn't make it. Later, he was found murdered in the woods, but nothing was ever proven.

Kate, ever industrious, and being a stubborn woman, decides the three of them will investigate what happened to Daniel, why he's stuck at the inn for only the twelve days before Christmas, and why can't he move on. 

Her boss is kind of unhappy since she hasn't actually done her job yet, but who cares about a grumpy boss at the moment.

There's sparks flying between Daniel and Kate, but Daniel has a sad story behind him: Lily, his fiancée, apparently married his brother after his death, and had a baby. It's only through rumours shared by the inn keeper's belle, Molly, that Kate begins to suspect there's more to the story, as the saying goes that Lily was actually pregnant with DANIEL's child at the time.

Daniel, however, is furious, since more and more people seem to be invading his privacy at the inn, and he doesn't want to talk about a past he considers too painful.

Luckily for him, Kate is extra stubborn, so she sticks around.

Only to figure out there's ANOTHER ghost haunting the inn.

Now they have a double mistery to solve, because Daniel starts remembering more, which is that he was doing rum runs during the Prohibition era and coming home from one, was in view of the inn itself, when someone knocked him out from behind, crushing his skull.

They can now narrow down the list of suspects, but Kate is recalled to Boston, where she's told that the appraiser finally got through the inn (Daniel called him), and does some digging of her own.

Finally figuring out her priorities, which had been under question since the beginning of the movie as she tends to focus more on work than anything else, she returns to the inn and shows Daniel the birth certificate Lily had made for her son right before the boy passed away - it lists him as the father, proving that Lily actually didn't go with his brother out of anything else but necessity, figuring out she was already pregnant and needing to provide for herself and her child.

This seems to open Daniel to the prospect of having a Christmas eve ball at the inn, as used to be tradition, and he and Kate dance in front of the Christmas tree which she promises she will always make sure he has during the twelve days of Christmas, no matter if the inn gets sold.

It's during this time that the last pieces start falling together, and Daniel realises the second presence in the inn is his cousin, Harry, who was the one that killed him, and can't move on because Daniel is stuck at the inn and hasn't forgiven him. Understanding that his cousin had done it only because the mobster who they had both been working for forced him to, Daniel forgives him and Harry moves on.

The resident ghost also figures out he isn't exactly in the inn for Harry - a spectre of Lily shows up (how many ghosts can an inn actually house?), and her Christmas miracle came true: the twelve days Daniel should have spent with her originally at the inn but he'd been away to Canada for had finally been paid back, and he's now free to go. But Daniel hesitates - because he's fallen in love with Kate. Lily just smiles and tells him it's his choice.

Christmas morning, a sad Kate (who did get her kiss under the mistletoe and promised Daniel to wait for him every year before they solved the clues) is preparing to leave when she gets the call the inn had been sold - bought by Walker and Molly!

Standing on the porch, she sees someone in the woods beyond, and runs down to meet Daniel halfway - a real, live Daniel now, who has chosen to stay with her instead of passing on.

Man, you have to love Christmas happy endings.

While the movie WAS occasionally cheesy, and some scenes were choppy (someone needs to teach a better waltz, too), all in all it was full of Christmas spirit, and it didn't just have only mush and sappiness. The ghost story was what drew me in and what was intriguing, and I'm thankful I found this movie because I think it could quickly become one of my favourite holiday ones.

And the good looking ghost didn't hurt, either.

xx

*images and video not mine