Stream It or Skip It: ‘Catering Christmas’ on Great American Family, Where Merritt Patterson Caters a Holiday Gala

Catering Christmas welcomes Merritt Patterson to the Great American Family stable of stars. The former Hallmark mainstay plays an up-and-coming caterer who lands a major gig catering a Christmas gala for a wealthy family. And because this is a holiday romcom, she might even land a man while she’s on the clock. But when it comes to delivering all the holiday feels, does Catering Christmas get the job done?

CATERING CHRISTMAS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Merritt Patterson plays Molly, owner of Molly’s Menu Magic — the second most in-demand catering service in town. Molly is all in on her catering dreams; she’s even missing her family’s holiday trip to the Florida Keys so she can focus on keeping her business afloat! That’s why she leaps at the opportunity to cater a Christmas gala put on by the Harrisons, a well-to-do family of philanthropists and entrepreneurs. This means having to put up with the demands of Harrison family matriarch Jean (Rosemary Dunsmore), a perfectly pleasant — yet incredibly picky — woman. But when Jean notices that Molly inspires a certain glimmer in the eye of her globetrotting nephew Carson (Daniel Lissing), Jean puts Carson in charge of the event in an attempt to bring these two kids together… and also bring Carson into the family business. Will Aunt Jean’s plan work? Will Molly keep this make-or-break gig? And will Carson trade his career as an event photographer for the life of an event planner in a small-to-medium-sized town?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Take a dash of The Princess Switch’s mistaken identity plot and a whole cup of its baking storyline, mix with a smidgen of A Christmas Prince’s decorum, and stir in an ounce of just any old store-brand kid-joins-the-family-business movie — like, say, Christmas Inheritance — and you’ve got Catering Christmas.

Performance Worth Watching: Without a sassy or spirited sidekick character (if only Melanie Leishman was given more to do as Christina!), I gotta give this to the movie’s lead, Merritt Patterson. It’s no wonder she’s become a holiday movie fixture. She plays her part with equal parts pluck and strength.

Memorable Dialogue: “When I was a kid I used to have Christmas tea parties with my dolls, and dinosaurs. T-Rex would have three or four helpings, which is really the greatest compliment for a cook”

A Holiday Tradition: The entire movie centers on the annual Christmas gala on December 23. And even though it’s clearly a big deal, the gala takes place in Aunt Jean’s living room and maybe has 25 or so guests. It’s an intimate gala.

Two Turtle Doves: This is one of two Christmas movies that features a plot about recreating a lost family recipe. In Catering Christmas, Molly tries to recreate Jean’s grandfather’s walnut fudge brownies. In Hallmark’s A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe (November 27), Rachel Boston has to recreate her grandmother’s lost cookie recipe in order to takeover as CEO of her family’s cookie company.

Does the Title Make Any Sense?: It does in that this is a movie about a catering company and it’s set at Christmas. The title would work more if the movie was about a catering company that only serves Christmas-y food, or if you could hire this catering company to provide instant Christmas decorations, meals, gifts, and merriment for a one-night-only event. Now that’s catering Christmas.

Our Take: Making an enjoyable holiday romcom is not easy. These movies have to be predictable but not boring, small-scale but not cheap, sincere but not cheesy, etc. It’s a challenge and, when evaluated in that way, Catering Christmas mostly works. It’s well-made and the performances have their charm. Rosemary Dunsmore and Michael Hanrahan play Aunt Jean and her estate manager Robert with flair, and Daniel Lissing plays leading man Carson, the prodigal nephew, with an appropriate mix of cynicism and sincerity.

Catering Christmas is missing its big swing, though — the kind of big swing that takes one of these movies from serviceable to sensational. And a big swing isn’t even a define-able quality; you just know it when you see it. Like, if Patterson and Lissing’s chemistry had more of an edge, or if assistant Christina had a small B-plot, or even if the movie was set in New York City or Chicago or anywhere other than what looks like the exact same drone shot that’s used to set the scene in every Hallmark movie. If anything supernatural had happened in this movie — it would’ve been a different movie, but that would’ve been its big swing. What’s frustrating is that you see opportunities for a big swing come and go — and you can’t help but wonder what the movie would’ve been like if that apparently inconsequential development had been integral to the movie.

For what it is, Catering Christmas is a fine holiday movie. It works perfectly as the kind of movie you put on while decorating the Christmas tree or, perhaps, baking your own candy cane-shaped Christmas cookies. It’s got the coziness down and it’s likable, but it misses opportunities to become a holiday movie that you gotta stop everything and rewatch every time it comes on this year (and in future years).

Our Call: Y’know what? STREAM IT. Catering Christmas may not spice up the holiday romcom recipe all that much, but it’s October. If you want a taste of Christmas right now, this will hit the spot.

Catering Christmas premieres on Great American Family on Saturday, October 29 at 8 p.m. ET