With Halloween officially over, the Christmas season has officially begun — or, in Hallmark’s case, has been building momentum. The cable channel’s Countdown to Christmas lineup hit the 2024 TV schedule in early October and has already delivered a handful of swoon-worthy holiday romance movies. While there are still two dozen more set for release, including two featuring Mama Donna Kelce, I think I already found my favorite new 2024 holiday movie: The 5-Year Christmas Party.
When the Countdown to Christmas lineup was first announced, I immediately put The 5-Year Christmas Party in my top five most anticipated upcoming Hallmark movies, and I’m so enthused that it lived up to the hype.
The film follows Alice (Katie Findlay), an aspiring theater director, and Max (Jordan Fisher), an aspiring actor, who had a bit of a college rivalry. However, they start to get to know each other when they find themselves working for the same holiday catering company year after year. Their paths might only cross around the holiday season, but that doesn’t stop them from developing feelings for each other over the course of five years.
I know it might be too soon to proclaim The 5-Year Christmas Party the best Christmas movie on the 2024 line-up, especially with none of Netflix’s holiday films, like the one starring Chad Michael Murray, out yet, but I believe this is the best one. If the synopsis isn’t convincing enough, maybe these three reasons will get you to understand how special this movie is.
Alice & Max Are Younger Than Most Hallmark Leads
Let me preface this by saying that I’m not against Hallmark film's tendency to feature stories around characters in their 30s and 40s. It’s a great thing! But as a viewer who isn’t quite in those age demographics yet, it’s nice to see the cable network continue to put a unique spin on its new movies by including stories that focus on young adults.
Now, don’t be mistaken; Alice and Max aren’t anything like the reckless young adults you might find in TV-MA streaming series. They’re both fresh out of their college programs, eager to begin chasing their big theater dreams and all the complications that come with that.
Despite their ages, The 5-Year Christmas Party still feels like a mature Hallmark movie; there’s just a little bit more youthful banter between the leads and their eccentric group of friends. What’s even more important is that the growing pains Alice and Max are dealing with can be relatable to anyone watching, regardless of age. After all, we never stop discovering who we are and what we want out of life.
The 5-Year Christmas Party Strays Away From Hallmark's Perfect Formula
Hallmark Christmas movies always bring me a lot of comfort because I know what I’m going to get with them. That’s the beauty of the perfect formula they’ve created for these films. However, it is always fun to see them divulge a bit from the tight constraints they’ve created, which is exactly what The 5-Year Christmas Party has done.
From the moment the movie begins, it’s clear that this isn’t going to be the standard Hallmark Christmas movie we’ve come to expect. Alice and Max don’t have an epic meet cute like so many romantic leads do. Instead, they bump into each other at a holiday party and have an awkward conversation that almost leads to them kissing.
That’s another pseudo-rule the film breaks. While kissing scenes are a staple in the romance genre, there’s usually only one kiss in Hallmark movies, and it happens at the very end. That’s not the case with Alice and Max, who share a handful of kisses before they’re officially together.
However, the biggest way The 5-Year Christmas Party strays from its perfect formal is that neither Alice nor Max has to give up their dreams in order to be together. I’ll be honest: it looked like that for a minute when Alice was about to leave her life behind in their small town to join Max in Los Angeles, but then she got offered the job of her dreams, so she stayed behind. Instead of that being the end of things, the two reconnected one last time over the holidays and agreed to finally be together — even if that meant being long-distance.
I can’t tell you when two romantic leads in a Hallmark movie have ever put their careers above their romantic lives and agreed to make it work without relocating. After all, a major Hallmark movie trope is the big-city girl falling for the small-town guy, causing her to uproot her corporate life for a quieter one in his town. It might not seem all that important, but the fact that The 5-Year Christmas Party was allowed to break such a cardinal rule of the perfect formula means that Hallmark is trying to appeal to viewers who want different things.
The Movie Proves That Some Things Are Worth Waiting For
Hallmark love interests always face some challenges when they decide to pursue a romantic relationship with each other, but for the most part, they’re together for most of the film. That’s not the case with The 5-Year Christmas Party. In fact, Alice and Max spend most of the year not talking to each other at all except for the few holiday parties they cater together during the holiday season.
Instead of letting the time apart strain their relationship, it makes the time they spend together even more special. I guess that old saying “absence makes the heart grow stronger” is actually true. By not forcing Alice and Max together from the very beginning, the two young adults were able to figure out who they were independent of one another. It also made their reunion at the end and declaration of love all the more powerful since they had to work hard to get to that point.
If I’m being honest, The 5-Year Christmas Party felt more like a holiday movie you’d find on Netflix than one you’d find on Hallmark. Again, that’s not a bad thing; it just proves that the cable channel understands it must adapt to new trends if it wants to retain its reign during the Christmas season.
There’s still a handful of films on the Countdown to Christmas schedule I’m excited for, like the anticipated sequel to Three Wise Men and a Baby, but for now, I’m confident in declaring The 5-Year Christmas Party the best film on the 2024 lineup.
If you happen to miss the movie, you can catch it again on Hallmark when it airs on Friday, November 8th, at 6 pm ET. And don't forget to check out the rest of the competition to see what The 5-Year Christmas Party is up against.
