A Cookie Cutter Christmas

2014
Written by Barbara Kymlicka
Directed by Christie Will Wolf

If you enjoy scenes of Alan Thicke eating various cookies, you will love A Cookie Cutter Christmas! For everyone who isn’t one of those four people, let me tell you about A Cookie Cutter Christmas. Hallmark delivers a tale of female rivalry that becomes a Christmas miracle because that’s just how they roll. Thus, A Cookie Cutter Christmas has us follow a woman who constantly loses to her rival in a battle for the only eligible guy in town as well as learning how to cook. The rival aspect might turn some people off, but it’s not that unusual for life. Some people are constantly comparing themselves to others and have to be better than them. The keeping up with the Jonses mentality can be self-destructive, cause financial ruin, and it’s also pretty annoying when someone keeps beating you again and again. That might not seem very Christmas, but like it or not, competition is a big part of Christmas. Displays, gifts, cards, arguing with relatives over Christmas dinner, the true meanings are often lost, and those with competitive streaks can get sucked right in.

Christie Reynolds (Erin Karkow) has been competing with Penny Miller (Miranda Frigon) since they were children, Penny stealing her verses in a Christmas pageant long ago and the rivalry living on decades later with both women as teachers at the same elementary school forever engaged in proxy battles. Penny Miller seems to win almost all of the conflicts, her students raise more money and she even organizes the big Christmas fund raiser now. Thus, Christie is in a down point in her life, forever stuck in second place.

Enter hunky single dad James Thompson (David Haydn-Jones), whose wife thoughtfully died off long enough ago that dating again is a possibility. His daughter Lily (Genea Charpentier) ends up enrolled in Christie’s class instead of Penny’s, but soon both women are working for the affection of the new hunk in town. James is super charity man, having moved to their small town specifically to start a charitable organization, thus now Penny alters the big fund raiser to help him out. Penny also organizes a bake off competition at the school, the winning teacher getting a fat sack of cash to use for a class trip. Christie enters the contest, both because her students would love a field trip and because it’s another thing to compete with Penny in. The only problem is that Christie cannot cook. At all. Her mom, Bev Reynolds (Laura Soltis), tells her point blank to her face that her food sucks. In the first round of the competition Christie doesn’t even get her food cooked before judging! Thus she’s going to need a crash course in baking, and guess which new hunky single dad in town once wanted to be a chef?