LOVE UNDER THE MISTLETOE

Here is the decision, and it is a simple one. LOVE UNDER THE MISTLETOE is a three-star Christmas romance with a +3 content rating, which is another way of saying there is essentially nothing here to warn you about. No foul language. No violence. No nudity. No alcohol. No smoking. Two scenes in which couples kiss.
What you get instead is a sweet holiday romcom, released as part of Hallmark's "Christmas in July" programming. The story runs on charity and small-town Christmas — a fundraiser that buys presents for children in need, a town tree that needs decorating, a family house with history in it.
What you do not get is polish. The production quality could be better, the plot is thin, and the ending arrives in a rush that may frustrate you at the exact moment you want the story to land.
So: put it on, with modest expectations. This is a clean, warm eighty-four minutes that will not challenge you and will not cost you anything either.

Ivy Glen at Christmas. Grace is a designer who loves life here, and her firm has just been chosen to decorate the town's Christmas tree. Her dating life is the part that is short on excitement: her friendship with Quinn, the local real estate agent, has never quite become anything more.
Across town, businessman Ryan takes a call from Sammy, the new mayor, asking him to revive his grandmother's old charity event, the Ribbons and Bows Fundraiser. He hesitates.
Sammy knows exactly whom to send to change his mind.

Three stars, and here is what they buy. The sweetness is real. This is a pleasant holiday romcom that does the genre's job, and Jen Lilley is the reason it works — she shines at the center of it, warm and easy on screen.
Thin is the fairest word for what surrounds her. There is less story here than the running time wants, and the production quality could be better than it is.
The ending is where it costs most. The movie hurries its finish, and viewers who have invested in the romance may find themselves shortchanged right when they wanted to linger.

LOVE UNDER THE MISTLETOE believes a small town is worth something, and that the proof is what its people do for each other in December.
Its moral center is charity — real charity, with a name and a mechanism. The Ribbons and Bows fundraiser exists so that children in need get Christmas presents, and the film shows a couple sponsoring exactly that. Around it are the things this genre does best: friendship, community, neighbors who turn up.
The Christian elements are light and mostly atmospheric — Christmas celebrated, again and again, as the season it is. This is a movie about the warmth of the holiday rather than the reason for it, and that can be said plainly without holding it against the film.
The questionable elements are small and easy to name. One character deliberately withholds what he intends to do with his family's house. Another brings that information into the open and reads selfishness into his motives. Neither is dwelt on, and both are worth a sentence at the dinner table afterward.
Underneath the romance sits a real question: what is a life actually for? Both of these people admit that dedication to work has crowded out life's little joys. Scripture answers the question from the other direction, and the fundraiser at the center of this movie is the illustration: "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35).

There is no warning label to attach to this one — just a modest, kindhearted Christmas movie with a charity at its heart and a lead actress worth watching. It is thinner than it ought to be and it ends in a hurry. It is also entirely safe to put on with anyone in your house, in July or in December. Our answer stands: worth watching.