Ho Ho Home for the Holidays Lifetime Cast
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A Sugar & Spice Holiday
Original Airdate: December 13, 2020 (Lifetime)
Where to Watch?: Lifetime will re-air it in this, and likely future seasons, too; It's also available to purchase on iTunes et al, or you can watch now, with ads, for a limited time, on mylifetime.com (cable login required)
A Sugar & Spice Holiday was another one of Lifetime's marquee 2020 holiday projects, and it shows. Great cast, great script and actual attention paid to telling a diverse, yet still cozy Christmas story.
Lifetime's first Chinese-American Christmas tale (filmed, like most of these movies, entirely in Canada), it featured not only a main cast all of Asian descent—Jacky Lai, Tony Giroux, Tzi Ma, Lillian Lim and Cardi Wong—but also writer Eirene Donohue and director Jennifer Liao.
The diversity behind-the-scenes clearly helped shape some of the movie's best moments, like Lai's "Suzy" calling out the casual racisim of a co-worker, with a blunt, "I'm from Maine." Smart, funny and pointed, without feeling overly message-y.
Wasn't really familiar with Lai before this, but she's sharp, funny and has great delivery, and the first 15-20 minutes of this movie was easily one of the very best of the season.
The movie followed a very traditional formula—successful businesswoman returns home and takes part in holiday baking contest with old crush—but turned it enough on its head to make it feel special, different and true to the characters.
Introducing all the characters by comparing them to cookies was a genius move, that really worked, and I laughed out loud at the scone joke. There was tone of whimsy here that was incredibly charming, and truly endearing
Even the flashbacks, for once, really worked to help establish Nema as a real presence and influence in Suzy's life, though I'm not sure what we're supposed to think when she wakes up with the rolling pin in her arms. Is Ghost Grandma real? Was Suzy sleepwalking?
Even the ubuiqitious baking contest is improved with the addition of Grandma's recipe, and the metaphors about life and happiness. Plus, the rival baker, played by Sasha Hayden, was really making a meal of her villian role and I was there for every intentionally over-the-top moment. Not to mention that Prince Harry ginger cookies are a genius idea.
Unfortunately, love story was probably the least strong part of this story. Both actors were very charming, but they went from supposedly being annoyed with one another to absolutely in love with little expiation showed or given, and while I liked seeing a couple that actually gets together before the very end, and the recreating the Christmas Dance moment was extremely swoon-worthy (minus Giroux's white socks and tennis shoes with a tux look), just didn't see enough about how Suzy went from "Oh no, not him!" to "He's the one."
The whole lost-my-project thing also really didn't seem to go anywhere, and was fairly unecessary. Not to mention unrealistic that she had so little frustration about it.
And, as with every Christmas movie, Sugar & Spice have used more Cardi Wong, here as Suzy's underused brother. But do have to say the young boy cast as his son was spot in, at least in terms of resemblance, so much so that I tried to look up and see if they were actually related in some way. Anyway, the child actor is Micah Chen, and as far as I can tell, he and Wong aren't relatives, but it was pretty uncanny. I mean…
The ending, where (spoiler alert) Giroux's "Billy" decides to follow Suzy to Australia after she does, in fact, get the big Christmas promotion at work is perfect. A rare you-can-have-it-all moment in these movies that are constantly making women choose between success in their work or personal lives.
Honestly, the somewhat rushed love story is the only reason I'm not giving this one four-paws, but it was still one of my very favorite movies of the season, and if Lifetime could make a dozen movies a year like this and The Christmas Setup—with that quality, attention to detail and cleverness—instead of presenting 34 mediocre or worse movies of which only half a dozen are actually pretty good, they'd kick Hallmark's butt. Because when Lifetime movies work, they're a little fresher, a lot funnier and just the tinest bit more special than anything Hallmark has produced. A Sugar & Spice Holiday is one of those special movies, and well worth a watch.
Final Judgement: 3 Paws Up and now I'm craving pork buns
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Source: https://sleepykittypaws.tumblr.com/post/637690403962961920/a-sugar-spice-holiday
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