Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Navigating Christmas’ on Hallmark, Where A Lighthouse Plays A Major Role In The Holiday Cheer

Hallmark continues to roll out holiday content with one of their latest titles, Navigating Christmas. The film follows recently-divorced working mom Melanie (Chelsea Hobbs) and her teen son, Jason (Everett Andres) as they make a last-minute plan to spend Christmas on a cute, remote island, only to discover upon arrival that they are expected to decorate and work the community’s lighthouse with the reluctant help of its Christmas hating owner, Peter Sanderson (Stephen Huszar). Can they navigate their respective issues to find holiday cheer and lasting love?

NAVIGATING CHRISTMAS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Melanie Dalton (Chelsea Hobbs) is at a swanky work holiday party, dressed to the nines and gabbing with her co-worker and pal, Claire (Katherine Haysbert). Melanie thanks Claire for being there for her as she’s gone through a divorce over the past year, while Claire just wants her friend to try letting down her walls to open herself up to dating. Melanie isn’t sure she’s ready. After all, she’s got her surly teenaged son, Jason (Everett Andres) to worry about.

Jason thinks his mom is a workaholic and blames her for the divorce between her and his father, Max. It actually turns out that the divorce is 100% Max’s fault, but Melanie is so desperate to protect her son from the truth that he’s definitely old enough to handle, that she allows herself to look like the bad guy. As a result, Jason is crushed to learn that Max has bailed (evidently that happens a lot) on spending Christmas with his sob because his girlfriend “has the flu.”

Trying to salvage her son’s holiday, Melanie acts fast to book a last-minute trip at the only place that still has room for the holidays… a lighthouse on the remote but charming St. Nicholas Island. But on the boat ride over from the airport, Melanie’s already regretting her decision as she struggles with sea sickness, only to butt heads with a handsome stranger whose ignored advice to move leaves her soaked at the boat’s bow by the ocean’s chilly spray.

As if that wasn’t a rough enough start, kindly and ever-helpful property manager Earl (Bobby Stewart) transports Melanie and Jason to the lighthouse, only for the latter two to discover that they’re responsible for its upkeep and holiday decorations while they’re there.

Melanie demands to speak to the lighthouse’s owner in order to talk things out so Earl takes her and Jason to a local dining staple called Ruth’s, whose titular owner (Tanja Dixon-Warren) is a delight. Less delightful is the lighthouse owner, who turns out to be the handsome boat stranger, AKA Christmas hater Peter Sanderson (Stephen Huszar).

Peter says Melanie should’ve read the booking more carefully, because the expected duties were explicitly listed there. He and Ruth then explain that decorating the lighthouse is a key part of the annual Christmas tradition that sees the lighthouse as the crowning “Christmas Star” of their island’s St. Nicholas Lights Festival. Melanie has no choice but to spruce up the lighthouse with the reluctant help of Jason in order to keep local tradition going.

Peter is eventually guilted into helping, leading him to slowly bond with Melanie and Jason. And while Peter and Melanie are overcoming past issues (inability to express emotions and trust issues, respectively), Jason gets his own chance to grow as he falls for the mayor Katy Cameron’s (Lindsay Gibson) teen daughter, Sarah (Nahanni Mitchell), who also helps him realize that perhaps his mom is actually kinda cool. Of course, it’s not all smooth sailing, as family, romantic, and financial conflicts threaten to get in the way of our characters’ happy ending.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: It evokes most other Hallmark Christmas movies, but most immediately reminded me of Christmas Island, mostly because both movies have lighthouses and attempt enemies to lovers storylines (though I’d say Christmas Island is more successful on that front).

Performance Worth Watching: In my opinion, Tanja Dixon-Warren and Bobby Stewart absolutely carry this film as Ruth and Earl. They both are able to convey (and sustain!) a genuine warmth and twinkle in their eye that makes every moment they have feel like a breath of fresh air.

Their characters also share a really sweet and believable longtime friendship that may even have room to become… something more? Now THAT’S the potential romance I care most about in this movie.

Memorable Dialogue: “I’m your lighthouse,” Melanie says to her son Jason as they stand near a giant actual lighthouse.

A Holiday Tradition: Beyond the annual lighthouse decorating and lighting celebration, there’s also a yearly tradition run by the very enthusiastic and Christmas-loving Mayor Katy, called the Reindeer Games. The tradition sees teams of two compete in a series of challenges (three-legged race with teammates connected by wrapping paper, tossing rings at a partner’s inflatable antler headwear, and limbo under a stick decorated like a candy cane, just to name a few), with the winning pair taking home the coveted Reindeer Trophy.

Does the Title Make Any Sense?: Navigating Christmas is a pretty straightforward title, so yes. Melanie is trying navigate Christmas post-divorce, and fittingly end up staying at a lighthouse to try and do just that.

Our Take: Navigating Christmas isn’t bad, it just doesn’t really have enough uniqueness to stand out amongst the many other Hallmark holiday titles. If you’ve never seen a Hallmark movie before, perhaps this could be a decent enough place to start as it follows a basic formula of main guy and main gal meet, get off on the wrong foot, find common ground, hit a snag in the relationship, then come together for a happy ending. But there just isn’t much to make this movie stand out or feel different.

Perhaps the issue is a certain lack of specificity that makes Navigating Christmas feel like it could be confused with many other Hallmark titles. We never really know for sure what Peter does for work or where he’s been the past eight years he’s been away avoiding Christmas on the island. We only find out in the last three minutes of the film that Melanie works as an investor of some sort.

Jason is just generally angsty and seems to harbor resentment towards his mother for no clear reason (seriously, she’s holding this family together and he’s being a bit of an ingrate), and Sarah has no defining features other than she likes Jason and her parents (while Mayor Katy definitely does have some personality, we never even see her dad) own a boat. There’s just a lot that feels vague. Like we never even get clear resolution on if Earl and Ruth end up together, and that’s what I was most invested it!

Melanie and Peter’s love story is fine but not especially exciting or popping with chemistry. The movie tries to shoehorn a conflict to drum up some drama near the end, where it’s revealed Peter is going to sell the lighthouse but hasn’t told anyone, leaving Melanie feeling betrayed on behalf of herself, Jason, and the town. But instead of feeling bad for her, I felt bad for Peter because his dad, Hal, died leaving him with unpaid bills for the lighthouse, emotional constipation, AND daddy issues (the latter of which Jason also has in spades), which I don’t think was meant to be the main takeaway there. In fact, I don’t really know what the main takeaway is at all (that lighthouses are cool and teen boys are a pain?), and therein lies the issue.

Our Call: SKIP IT. While it isn’t terrible by any means, unfortunately, it will take more than a lighthouse to find a way to make Navigating Christmas a memorable and original holiday movie.