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Keywords
Hallmark movies, Christmas, The Santa Class, holiday cheer, movie review, character dynamics, romantic comedy, festive films, movie analysis, holiday spirit
Summary
In this festive review, Nick and Leslie discuss the Hallmark movie 'The Santa Class,' exploring its plot, character dynamics, humor, and romantic elements. They share their thoughts on the film's charm, the performances of the actors, and how it compares to other holiday movies. The conversation is filled with laughter, insights, and a sprinkle of holiday cheer as they wrap up with their final thoughts and Christmas wishes.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (00:00.276)
Nick and Leslie, Nick and Leslie talking holiday cheer. Hallmark movies, cozy nights, and a festive review today. Hey, grab a seat and a sweet treat, cozy up push play. Movie cheers, what you'll hear this Hallmark movie day. Welcome to our holiday, Hallmark holiday review. Today we're going to be talking about a little movie called The Santa Class.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (00:31.598)
It's a school for Santas. This is so exciting! You have to sound like Santa and be like Santa. Ho, ho, ho. Ho, ho, ho! Ho, ho, ho. Ha, he, ha. What's my motivation here?
This must be a new student. This is, Nick.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (00:54.254)
Nice. The Santa Class, all new, part of Countdown to Christmas, only on Hallmark Channel. 7 p.m. Santa Class tells the story of Kate and her sister Bailey. I think they were sisters. They appear to be sisters. Kate is inheriting her dad's Santa school.
Santa Academy. Santa Academy. Star Santa Academy. Jeez, what is happening today? It's because I can't sit properly. And their biggest competitor is called Saint Nick's Academy, think. Something like that. And they're like the really wealthy Santa Academy. And so the really wealthy Santa Academy lays off their best teacher because his salary is so expensive and that is Dan. So Dan goes to Kate's Santa school.
to beg her for a job. On their first day in, they run into the actual Santa Claus, who is amnesiac because he was in an accident where he bumped his head. They see his sled and reindeer fly off without him, and he's just wandering the street like a crazy old man in a Santa costume. So they're like, my god, this is the real Santa. What better way to remind him who he is than making him go through our Santa Academy?
Kate does not want to believe this, a real Santa. By the way, I liked how you wrote Uber. So I thought it was funny that when Dan got fired, they told him, by the way, the Uber, we're gonna need to take our company car away from you. By the way, the Uber back home is part of your severance package. I thought that was funny. Again, actually, this is another Hallmark movie starting off with someone getting fired. Yeah, sure, sure, sure.
I really liked the writing of this movie. It made me giggle. was a great premise that actual Santa is hidden in this class of people training to be Santa. You know, it's hard to say is this going to be a top five or like a top seven for me. Like, OK, yeah, I don't think it's going to hit my top five, but I thought it was a great idea. I'm going to give it a six because it's a bunch of character actors and they were really fun.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (03:09.006)
The person that had to do the ventriloquist doll, they probably didn't even know. He was definitely not a ventriloquist. Well, obviously. yeah. So it's a class of a bunch of, for lack of a better term, weirdos. We have another guest that popped up today. Reggie, what'd you think of the Santa class? Now, what I thought was that it was beautiful, or the boss in hell, it was just kiss. yeah.
Yeah, that's that's where it was a night a lot. Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty. What do you think of all the cookies and milk that Santa could eat? that was so jealous. I did wear Mama's cookies. Mama's cookies are the bestest. So I know he wasn't eating the best cookies, but I was kind of jealous. All right. Thank you very much for your input, Reggie. Is it Christmas milk time now? No, it's not, honey. I'm sorry. So speaking of Christmas milk, tell them about your Christmas milk you made. the Christmas milk.
So was it Aldi's? I think we got like snickerdoodle. This is like in October or Yeah, almonds. And puffkishvarsh. She's not just yelling my name. I said I'm sorry. So we've had these flavored almonds for a while in the pantry. were so They're disgusting. I like them, but like I can only take so many at a time. it's like, and then like whenever you accidentally ate too many at one time.
So what I did was I usually make our oat milk and I was like, well, I wonder if I can make the almonds, the almond smoke. So I soaked the nuts and then I poured it then I blended it, you know, after like eight hours of soaking and it's like a Christmas milk. It's delightful. It's blown by and then mixed with the actual creamy oat milk. yeah, it's good. I'm going to have some after this.
So today we also this is not part of the fun. It is. It's been a day. We roasted an entire turkey, 14 pound bird. There's only two of us, by the way. Only two of us. So we ate like about one fifth of this turkey. You think we ate one fifth of this turkey? We ate about one sixth of this turkey. And then the rest is in the fridge and we're going to be making stock later. But we had this old turkey. Leslie's an amazing rail tour. You think we ate two pounds of turkey?
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (05:33.878)
Well, most of it's bone. Maybe not most. lot of it is bone. Well, anyway. So Leslie's an amazing realtor and her brokerage gave all the agents 14 pound turkeys. And so we're like, well, we got nothing else going on today. Let's do the turkey. So every 30 minutes we had to take it out, give it a little glaze. Spent an entire week thawing it in the An entire week thawing it. And I did a sweet potato casserole with brown butter, orange zest, cardamom.
vanilla other spices and delicious we thought our cranberry sauce that we had made for Thanksgiving and didn't want to go bad yeah so we quickly thought it after where we froze it and then thought it so and we had Cuban bread so we made sandwiches then we made sandwiches for the second round they're real good yeah okay the Santa Claus that's why I'm tired it's like food coma yeah so the Santa Claus North Star is the name of the Santa Academy
that Kate and Bailey run. And apparently there's a talk of this thing called the Christmas Cup, where their graduating class competes against the other school's graduating class. And this has brought up a lot as if it's like a city-wide known thing, even though when we actually get to the cup, it's just the characters we've seen in the movie. There's no audience or anything. Why when they were doing the Christmas market stroll? Reggie, are you playing with my shoe?
when they were doing the Christmas market stroll, why did he kept pointing out like, everyone knows you? Why? Yeah, that was weird. Cause it's not like, the town to rally together to save. Yeah. No, no, nothing was relative to that. I want to shout out a couple of moments from early on in the movie when Dan is like begging Kate to get a job there as a Santa teacher. He does this very rousing speech when the music swells.
And as soon he finishes, it cuts out and she says, did you really think that was going to work? I thought that was very funny. There was every scene had something good and it kept us giggling and we unfortunately took for us forever because we were cooking to watch this, but it was, it kept us enjoying every moment. I liked it.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (07:52.173)
I really loved the actor who played Dan. He is oozing charm. We- and I was- But what's funny is we saw him earlier in the year in that movie where the- the girl is like gonna fall in love with one of three guys named Nick. Yeah. And he was not very charming. No, he was the doctor that got into the coma or concussion after- after I was getting So yeah, he's a great versatile actor so far. He's wonderful. Yeah, I was like, wow, you're a charmer. I was feeling nothing from Kate. yeah.
Maybe she's trying to play the every woman or something. I mean, maybe, you know, like the busy woman, like she's stuck at like running a business that she did not want to, you know, leave apparently, but doesn't want to be at. So she's just, you know, doesn't want to disappoint her family or her or her father. mean, I don't relate. So I'm going to do what pleases me and us and our family, not, you know, our parents. So I.
You know, again, different perspectives of, you their parents. So, you know, it's interesting, but to carry on that dread, though. Another scene I want to shout out in the beginning was, so the movie starts off with them. There's going to be a blizzard coming in. I thought the cinematography around the blizzard was beautiful. And it's the following morning after the blizzard that she that Kate and Dan go or Kate picks up Dan and they drive off to the Academy.
Wait, so was Santa blown off course by the blizzard? Probably. I just realized that. But so when Kate goes to pick up Dan, he's got a mug of hot cocoa. Yes. Filled to the brim with candy and marshmallows. And she's like, excuse you, you can't eat an open, you can't have an open mug of cocoa in the car. Which is insane. In the mug. was cute. was like a sweater with two arms. Two arms. I was like, does it have two handles?
And so he's like, don't worry, I've never spilled a mug of cocoa in my life. And he's like, look, see, and he started swinging it around. me. I was like, whoa. And then later on, when they see Santa in the road, she slams on her brakes. He goes shaking. The mug is still perfectly fine. Perfectly fine. like, see? And I did like, you know. That was a hilarious little bit. But also props to the prop person or props to the actor, because it was clearly, you know, a drive that had been.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (10:11.213)
You know, two minutes, five minutes, seven minutes down the road, and you could see the marshmallows go further and further down. Yeah, anyway, so good job. Props to the props. Props to the prop. Can we chat about jumping bones? my gosh, they fucked. They fucked. In the Hallmark movie. Hallmark movie in a car. They fucked. She tasted his candy cane. Candy cane. He was all up in her gumdrops. He was in her chimney.
Yep, yep. Santa... Riding that Down that chimney. He dropped coal in her stocking? No, that's not. He frosted her snowballs. We don't really know if that occurred. okay, so they kiss, and they're like, this is a little awkward. And that was a... But it was a good kiss. It was a good kiss. And then, I think it was the following morning... When it... Because they had a carpooling. Yeah, she goes to pick him up again.
and they're staring like quietly at each other and then they quickly jump on each other. or they went inside his house because they were in his driveway. Yeah. And then when they do get to work, they're a little bit late and his hair is messy. Hers is not. His is. That's why they... Maybe she just sat on his face. That too. Could have been. Yeah. I think I think that's what happened. Swiped his nose like a credit card. So.
And then they do kiss again. So there's it's a triple smoocher ladies and gentlemen We don't often get triple smoochy movies, but this one has three smooches wait, no, no four smooches because of the sister and the only and Timothy. Yes. Yeah, Timothy who was the No, actually Anyway, the actor one was the nerdy brother. I said academia. Yeah, I know I don't think I've seen anyway, they do kiss to distract him. Yeah, so
While they're going through their North Pole Academy training, that's when the said person named Nick who is amnesia and Santa Claus is like learning. Everyone around him is learning that he's Santa Claus, but he's not really picking up on what himself is putting down. His acting was pretty rough. Yeah. So like people would realize like, he can pull a random thing out of a bag. He knows exactly what children wants want. So like, you know, he can think.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (12:35.775)
or hear people's thoughts. know, this is the thing. Part of their training is to go to like a mall and actually be a mall Santa. my God. Terrifying. Beautifully directed into like a horror scene of children being disgusted. Because it's true. It is true. Children are gross. Children are gross. We were at Halloween on Central and St. Petersburg at our booth and like you can give out candy. so we were giving out candy. Children were just...
It's like running ducks you feed one and then they come back with 30 other dogs like just running around getting candy like running your booth like grabbing things that you know are for sale and I think they're free and it's just like chaos and sticky and the parents are like finally a safe place I can let them off the leash right and we're like my god parents are all drunk okay chemistry of meter between Kate and Dan what do you think?
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (13:24.907)
I don't know, I mean... I think it's a low number. I mean, I love Dan. It was a triple smoocher, but... I guess somewhat, you say a four? I didn't feel like Kate was ever really into Dan. Dan was just excited about everything. Yeah, he was. Three. So, I think I gave a five to the last one. Yeah, let's go four. Four, okay. It's not like I'm writing these down, of course.
I mean, tracking them anywhere. So that was the Santa class. Any final notes on the Santa class? It's cute to watch. All right. It's pretty. It does have beautiful set design, some really good moments, some very weird lighting in scenes that looked rushed or shot after the fact because they needed more dialogue. They looked a little sweaty in the beginning. Some rough acting, but some fun acting. I'm going to drop that actually to a five because...
Yeah, that Santa was it was a was a bit So that was the Santa class probably gonna be upper middle for me. Okay So let's take a few minutes to talk about the Netflix Christmas movie watched our little secret our little secret. No, it's a little secret Our little secret. Yeah, our little secret. That's what I said, but it's our little secret. We can't tell okay We're not allowed to talk about this one B as we I know
Can we talk about how... So last year, Lindsay Lohan was in another Christmas movie. Yes. Where the fillers were on full display. Right. This movie? Gorgeous. I told you! It's like she evened out her I told you! She looked really pretty in this movie. I told you! Okay. The guy who plays her ex-boyfriend, the male lead of this movie, I loved him. He was so charming. Yes. So sweet.
He seemed like a genuinely good person, not like Hollywood good. I don't know. I don't know, but like why was he with that girl? That's- that is weird. That's what I don't understand. Why was he dating a high schooler? Right, exactly. It wasn't a high schooler everyone, it was a college. The movie felt like an episode of Three's Company where it's all just misunderstanding and secrets and all the drama would have been solved by someone just explaining the truth. And...
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (15:48.565)
I mean, that always frustrates me, but I need to get off that hangup because that is the premise of most Hallmark movies. Most holiday movies, most family movies. That's what we talk about. Kristin Chenoweth was delightfully evil. Yes. Yeah. Yes. It got heavy pretty quick. Like there's adultery and drugs and... Now I want to compare it to that Hallmark movie we watched last year.
that had the, I forgot what it was called, but it had the thick butter? No, that wasn't Hallmark, that was just another Amazon. okay. Or Netflix. Yeah, it had Robbie Amell and it had THC butter. I feel like they were similar in Was that Dakota Johnson? No. Okay. I'm gonna look it up. I can't, my phone's recording. If you look up Robbie Amell, you'll find it. What? How do you- what? R-O-B-B-I-E space A-M space
Bass, A, L, there you go. Yeah, so he was in it. I remember what it was called, but I want to compare them to because they were both... X-mas? Yes. that's right. Leigh and Meester? Meister. Yeah. So X-mas came out last year and I feel like they were very similar budget-wise and cinematography-wise they felt similar.
In it, they are exes who end up at the same Christmas party or something? Or they break up right before they go to the house for Christmas and they're like, let's still pretend we're a couple. I don't remember the premise. can't quite remember. But I remember that movie working for me more than Our Little Secret because it was like less dependent on lies and non-discussion. It was more dependent on just them being charming in scenes together.
So shout out to Xmas from last year. E-X-N-A-S. M-A-S. Yeah. Yeah. But still think you should see Our Little Our Little Secret was pretty good. I definitely liked it better than Hot Frosty for comparing Hallmark Christmas and Netflix Christmas movies. Netflix. Although Hot Frosty felt more Christmas than Our Little Secret did. Our Little Secret felt like it just happened to happen around Christmas time. It wasn't crazy Christmassy to me.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (18:12.621)
I guess. there were Christmas activities. liked the, I don't want to say it yet. The, guess, okay, I'm so sorry. I enjoyed how they were trying to make her a better person in the eyes of the mother. Christian Charlemagne. Yeah. but it never really showed her doing work of helping him with the proposal.
That's what I like, where's her skill? I know we brought it in look at it and go yep good Yeah, like this is great. And so like I was like, And I don't I'm not saying we need to hear the words, but I'm like there could have been a little montage Mm-hmm of 30 seconds less than of them like her I don't know pointing or like hey, I don't know figure it out. But yeah now it's like she really does seem useless anyway Yeah, so that was our little secret
And we have another Hallmark movie for this weekend, which we will watch tomorrow. Yeah, because I'm not saying I can't say it. I don't remember what it's about, but the title seems incredibly Christian. Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, have a good night, everyone. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Eat your turkeys. Ooh. Gobble gobble. Gobble gobble.
