The Best & Battiest Moments From This Past Weekend's Holiday Movies

Once again it's the season to be merry and watch every new holiday movie as it debuts! Each Monday, we'll take a look back at the previous weekend's premieres to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year with a new list of superlatives.

Hallmark Channel's Believe in Christmas, starring Meghan Ory and Lindura, and based on the novel Christmasland by Anne-Marie Meyer, asked a fun question: What happens if you vacation in a town that prides itself on giving visitors the full holiday movie experience and meet someone special? How do you know the courtship is real and not part of the show if it involves a flat-tire meet-cute, a snowball fight, a flour fight, sharing a hot cocoa, slow dancing, an almost kiss interrupted at just the right moment and the arrival of the Big Bad Ex?

Do you wanna build a ridiculously large snowman? We don't think they meant for the dimensions of this guy to be a joke in Believe in Christmas, but boy did we laugh.

Hooray for Hallmark embracing the fake kiss, which allows characters to pucker up before the last act. While it didn't top the steamy hide-from-people makeout in last year's Catch Me If You Claus, The Christmas Quest did make us swoon. Treasure-hunting archaeologist Stefanie (Lacey Chabert) and her ex-husband, Chase (Kristoffer Polaha), were about to get busted for being in a restricted area during a museum gala. Chase asked her if she'd ever seen the film Notorious, then dipped her for a passionate kiss to make it seem as though they were just a couple in search of a place to be alone. "I gotta see that movie," Stefanie quipped afterward.

As we said when we named The Christmas Quest our Pick of the Week, the set-up seems perfect to launch a new Hallmark Mystery franchise, Mr. & Mrs. Baxter. The dynamic duo could jet off for more expeditions where Lacey Chabert's flashlight-toting Stefanie takes point and Kristoffer Polaha's dead-language expert Chase, newer to the field, remains astounded, hearing stories of her past perils. We miss Polaha's Mystery 101 detective film series, and Chabert has a lot of experience with destination films — a match made in Hallmark heaven.

In Hallmark Channel's A '90s Christmas, workaholic divorce lawyer Lucy (Eva Bourne) took a magical cab ride back 25 years to relive a fateful holiday. Upon entering her childhood bedroom, she spotted a notebook in which she'd doodled Dawson Creek star Joshua Jackson's name in a heart. "Joshua Jackson? Really, Lucy?" she said, mocking herself. Clearly Lucy has not seen Jackson in Doctor Odyssey! Runner-up reference: Lucy's friend/crush Matty (Chandler Massey) using the nickname Lobster for her in honor of Friends.

Each film in Hallmark+'s Unwrapping Christmas franchise has found a way to be mildly infuriating, including the finale, Olivia's Reunion. Even if we somehow accept that a gift-wrapping store can survive year-round, we cannot believe the four owners would send one of themselves, Olivia (Cindy Busby), to deliver wrapped gifts to a cabin that's an hour outside the city during the height of their busy season. Then again, none of the ladies appeared to clock many hours in-store!

Spoiler alert if you haven't seen Paramount+'s Dear Santa: It's safe to assume that no one expected to cry watching the PG-13 film starring Jack Black as a Demogorgon trying to earn his horns in Hell, who answers the letter that dyslexic 11-year-old Liam (Robert Timothy Smith) thought he'd written to Santa. But then came the final scene, when Liam was granted his unspoken wish — his little brother was alive again. Once we finished sobbing, we couldn't help but worry that some parents (or local Santas) may now have to explain to grieving children why Christmas magic can't perform resurrections.

In Hallmark Channel's Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story, a family of diehard, superstitious Kansas City Chiefs fans believe the only way the team reaches the Super Bowl is if someone in their clan dons their vintage Chiefs hat on Christmas Day. Grandpa (Ed Begley Jr.) had received the hat from a sidewalk Santa in 1969, and was told if he wore it on Christmas, his wish would come true, and it did. Flash-forward to the hat going missing this year...but being returned by that same Santa (Abraham Benrubi) on Christmas Day at Arrowhead Stadium. The mist in Begley's eyes made what could be an eyeroll moment an incredibly sweet one.

We had to forget that David Pinard just played the scheming Big Bad Ex of a global pop superstar in Lifetime's Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce homage Christmas in the Spotlight, and see him as the Good Guy in UPtv's A Bluegrass Christmas, helping to stage a benefit concert to save a horse sanctuary.

In BET+'s One Fine Day-esque single-parents comedy The Day Before Christmas, organized Nia (Candace Maxwell) somehow left all the food for her catering jobs in her car when it was being towed. Then, after accepting a ride from Rashaad (Tristan Mack Wilds), she didn't doublecheck that she'd grabbed her cell phone instead of his, even though she already made that mistake once during the journey. Don't even get us started on her walking over to a stranger's car when he invited her (and her daughter!) to do some Christmas shopping from his trunk.

Have we ever seen a shirtless scene on Hallmark that lasted 2 minutes and 50 seconds before? If not, Beau Mirchoff is a trailblazer for his work in The Finnish Line, which found his retired racer-turned-journalist Cole treating musher Anya's (Kim Matula) insomnia with an ice bath and sauna ahead of the dog-sledding race where she avenged her late father's defeat.

In Great American Family's A Cinderella Christmas Ball, dance instructor Chelsea (Danica McKellar) and the Prince of Havenshire (Oliver Rice) performed a lift that seemed a little inappropriate for a waltz declaring his bride. But we have to go with Hulu's Nutcrackers, which — spoiler alert! — climaxes with four orphans (played by real-life siblings Homer, Ulysses, Atlas and Arlo Janson) leading a poignant performance of their remake of The Nutcracker ballet on the street where their parents had been killed and their uncle Mike (Ben Stiller) realizing he is capable of love after all.

As far as integrated marketing efforts go, this one in Hallmark Channel's Deck the Walls was solid: Interior designer Rose (Ashley Greene) visited HomeGoods to decorate the Christmas Charity House Flip she was doing with her brother Sal (Danny Pellegrino) and unrequited childhood crush Brysen (Wes Brown). Yet, seeing how quippy that script (co-written by Pellegrino) was, we would've loved to see the siblings peruse the aisles together and detail their most niche HomeGoods finds. Can we bring back that video trend next year?

LOL to whomever suggested they put a giant red bow on this red trash can being used to clean up the house after a tree fell on it in Deck the Walls. We must be able to tell it's a Christmas movie in every shot!

There have been a lot of pooches in holiday movies this year, but only once, in Netflix's Our Little Secret, have we watched a woman (Lindsay Lohan) and a vet (Chris Parnell) pretend to treat a dog for chocolate poisoning after she lied and blamed the pup for eating a dozen cookies. Which she herself had consumed after digesting THC-infused candy and leading a church congregation in a sing-along of Kool & the Gang's "Celebration."

Screenwriter Sammy (Cameron Mathison) answering the door in this cozy turtleneck sweater, holding his dog named Richard Gere, was a welcome sight in Great American Family's Home Sweet Christmas.