A Christmas Movie that Sparkles

With Christmas just two weeks away, you may be searching for a new holiday viewing favorite—a supplement to the omnipresent and always popular It’s A Wonderful Life.

I nominate Signed, Sealed & Delivered for Christmas. (You can see the trailer here.)

Released in 2014, we’ve already watched it three times and are likely to do so again this year.

Spoiler alert: if you are a sophisticated movie critic, you won’t like this film. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 60 percent, meaning there is a healthy percentage of folks out there who don’t rate it very highly.

It is, after all, a Hallmark Channel production that started out as a TV series before morphing into a cottage industry of films that air on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.

However, for those who consider movies like My Dog Skip and Baby’s Day Out classics, I think you will enjoy this one.

Tracking Down Mail

Unless you go binge-watch the 10-episode TV series, there won’t be time to get fully acquainted with the interplay between the four leading characters in the movie.

We found that because we had watched the series and were acquainted with the storyline, it made the Christmas movie that much more enjoyable.

For those who haven’t discovered it, Signed, Sealed & Delivered is about two men and two women who are stationed at the Denver branch of the U.S. Postal System’s dead letter office.

Their knack for tracking down senders of long-ago mislabeled letters and packages serves as the pretext for their detective-style sleuthing.

It takes them through sometimes dangerous exploits, but always results in a happy ending.

The brains behind the franchise is Martha Williamson, creator of the popular Touched By An Angel, which aired from 1994 to 2003 on CBS. So, if you liked that series, you’ll find more of the same here.

A Cast with Chemistry

When it comes to successful TV shows or movies, the elusive quality known as chemistry makes the difference. The main cast, including Eric Mabus, Kristin Booth, Crystal Lowe, and Geoff Gustafson, have it in spades.

Cynics might label their interplay schmaltzy and saccharine. I call it lovable and heartwarming.

In the Christmas film, the dead letter team is trying to deal with 20,000 impossible-to-deliver letters to Santa.

But their primary attention goes to one containing a plaintive cry from a young girl whose mother is hospitalized with cancer and about to give birth.

The postal sleuths set out to track down the sender’s identity and location, which leads to caroling and a touching Christmas play in the hospital’s lobby.

You can probably guess much of the rest, and I don’t want to give away too many details for those who haven’t seen it.

But in my estimation, the Christmas movie is what good movie-making is all about. Every time we watch it, we come away with a warm glow.

We feel more than good. We are optimistic about the future and the goodness that exists in the world because of the Son whose birth we celebrate every December 25.

I don’t think I can give a better endorsement than that.