/I must come clean. I saw the 2 hour run-time on this and said, “Gah”. I tuned in about half an hour in. I didn’t think I’d miss too much though…

Erin Karpluk plays Mary (natch!). She’s a hard-driving city girl that was raised by some good old-fashioned, hard-working country folk. She’s in some sort of job that secures funding for various projects in various communities. Back to visit her parents, she goes for a hike, gets lost and wanders across this lodge out in the middle of nowhere. Oh, it’s a dilapidated old place that’s run by a buff fella by the name of Jack (Micheal Shanks). Nobody goes there anymore. You see, since his wife died all of his time has been taken up with caring for little Lulu. (I didn’t catch her name and I don’t know anything about IMBD) Did I mention that Mary is single and just coming off an emotional breakup? That’ll come in handy later on, no doubt. This lodge-place seems vaguely familiar to her but…

Mary recounts this hiking misadventure to her ailing grandpa who looks sorta like Santa, of course. Gramps says, “That’s Christmas Lodge! Our family went there every year. You were so young, you probably don’t remember. Oh the good times we had there with loved ones!” *Cough* *Cough* What I wouldn’t give for one more Christmas up there. Our head-strong protagonist gets it into her head that she’s gonna make things right for Gramps and the family. She asks her dad (who happens to own a construction company!) to take a look at how much it might cost to renovate Christmas Lodge and get it up to speed again. Well, the total comes in at just over 2 million bucks. Where the heck are they going to find that kind of money? Hold on a minute, she raises funds for various community projects! Looks like a slam dunk to me. End of story. But hold on a minute you stupid viewer, the board turns down the funding request. Mary makes a personal plea to a silver-haired briefcase and gets turned down again. Jesus Christ! Things are not going her way AT ALL. She whines to her dad to put other jobs aside and focus on this one so that Gramps can have one last Christmas at Christmas Lodge and is told, Grandpa isn’t going to pull through this just like this lodge isn’t going to be fixed up.

The End. Kidding! Mary goes into work and is told by silver-haired briefcase that he went to individual donors and came up with a million dollars just like that. She and her dad go off to visit Gramps at the hospital and she explains this turn of events. Gramps, who passed the construction business on to his son, offers to come up with the other million. (It’s great being a white person in a Hallmark movie). Dad’s a stubborn bastard though and says he won’t devote the time to getting Christmas Lodge ready for…you know. Gramps quotes from the bible and throws in the old, “Jesus was a carpenter just like you and HE helped people in need” or some such. His arm sufficiently twisted, dad is on board. (carpenter, board. Get it? No? Oh well) The good news doesn’t end there though. She is offered a job in a rural office just 10 miles from Christmas Lodge. Her old job is then given to Black Friend #1 and she is happy to get the promotion. Where the hell did Black Friend #1 come from? It doesn’t much matter does it? Mary and Jack decide to start dating much to the delight of little Lulu. Everything’s going swell, isn’t it? Well, I’ve got an Emeril Lagasse-esque BAM! for you.

Gramps has a stroke. Mary’s Christmas Lodge dream is as dead as Gramps entire left side. Due to some atrocious editing it is Thanksgiving all of a sudden, everyone is there except Gramps. Due to some more atrocious editing it’s Christmas Eve, everyone is at the lodge except for you-know-who. Well, jimminy crickets, guess who shows up at the last second? Mary is so surprised to see him! I guess once she got the cheque she had no more use for the old man and stopped visiting him and didn’t notice the progress he was making.  There’s a marriage proposal and little Lulu-who wears plastic angel wings intermittently throughout this whole series of events(?)-couldn’t be happier. Gramps gets out the fiddle and everyone dances. The End.

*The full title of this movie is Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Lodge which is not to be confused with 2008’s Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage starring Marcia Gay Harden and Jared Padelecki.