The Spirit of Christmas (Lifetime)
Lawyers and ghosts and rumrunning rings, these are a few of my favorite things
If you’ve been reading, it’s obvious that I’m delighted by holiday movies featuring overworked women lawyers who for some reason fall in love with completely unsuitable men. The solution, of course, is for these lawyers to stop visiting small towns. That way they can keep their Burberry coats and lavish city apartments, instead of ending up shoveling reindeer poop on a farm. Also, should they seek a life partner, in the city they could find one who supports their career instead of encouraging them to abandon it. Law school career services offices ought to offer preemptive info sessions about this, considering how often it seems to happen. It might help close the gender gap at the law firm partnership level.
My favorite entry in this genre is The Spirit of Christmas (not to be confused with my very own offering, The Holiday Spirit). I thought this was a Netflix movie because that’s where I saw it, but it’s actually a Lifetime movie! So I HAVE watched Lifetime movies, and have been missing out all this time by not watching more.
The protagonist, Kate, is a Boston biglaw corporate lawyer, just like I used to be, which is partly why I have a soft spot for this movie. I was convinced that an ex-lawyer must have written this movie because the law firm scenes, and later the scenes where she’s on the phone with the partner, are absolutely spot on. But no, the writer, Tracy Andreen, is a former journalist who worked in film development and just came out with a YA holiday novel called So, This Is Christmas. (Book club, anyone?)
For legal purposes, Kate has to stay by herself in a haunted B&B. It’s haunted by a good-looking jerk who warns her to get out. He only haunts the house at Christmas and has no idea why he reappears! Kate, of course, falls in love with him and neglects her legal work to solve the mystery of his untimely demise a century ago. Family drama, scandal, and rumrunning to Canada ensue!
Now cover your ears because here come some SPOILERS.
At the end Kate unghosts him so they can be together. And this made me yell at the screen a lot. Because this guy is legally dead! He has no valid birth certificate or Social Security number. He doesn’t know how to drive because nobody had a car back then. He has no marketable skills other than Canadian rumrunning which isn’t in high demand these days. Kate! You’re smart, rich, and beautiful. Let this dead weight go. (See what I did there?)
The Spirit of Christmas: A++++ highly recommended.