It’s fun to recommend Christmas movies I have watched, and I have recommended this one — Trading Christmas — in compilation posts other years but thought I’d break it out for a separate post this year.

Trading Christmas is an older Hallmark movie (2011) and I know I might be scolded for this but I find the older Hallmark movies so much better than the more modern ones.

The movie is based on the book of the same title by Debbie Macomber.

I stumbled onto this one by accident about four years ago and have watched it every Christmas season since then.

It stars Tom Cavanaugh and Faith Ford and it has humor, sweet moments, romance, and it’s about a writer so you know it interested me.

Like I said, it is a Hallmark movie and (again) I know that they have a reputation for being poorly written and cheesy but this, like Signed, Sealed, Delivered holds up pretty well and is worth the watch. Will there be a trope or two you roll your eyes at? Yeah, probably, but I think Tom Cavanaugh’s sarcasm and snarkyness (a new word?) will help heal those wounds.

The premise behind the movie is that Emily (Faith Ford) was expecting her daughter Heather (Emma Lahana) to come home from college for Christmas, but Heather wants to go somewhere else with her boyfriend this year. She doesn’t tell Emily she’s going to be traveling with her boyfriend, though, just that she’s staying in Boston, where she attends college. With that news, Emily must decide what to do with herself.

She doesn’t want to stay in her small town and Christmas-centric house alone. After all, her husband passed away six years ago, and she’s always had her daughter home with her. Her friend Faith (Gabriella Miller) calls to talk and when Emily talks about how sad she is that Heather isn’t coming home, Faith tells her she should do something bold this year for Christmas and let her daughter grow up on her own.

Faith takes this advice to heart but still wants to see her daughter, so she signs up for a house trade with a man named Charles (Tom Cavanaugh) who lives in Boston. Emily lives in a beautiful house in a tiny town and Charles lives in a studio apartment in Boston. A small town away from everything is exactly where Charles wants to be because he’s trying to rewrite his latest novel.

Emily and Charles both run into their own snags once they arrive at their swaps. First, Emily’s daughter isn’t in Boston when she arrives, but instead has gone to Arizona with her boyfriend.  Second, Tom’s brother Ray (Gil Bellows) calls the police on Emily because he thinks she has broken into his brother’s apartment. He’s the one that suggested Charles swap houses with someone, but suggested Charles not tell anyone where he was going. He didn’t know Charles wouldn’t tell him either.

Ray, by the way, is a perfect gentleman after he accidentally almost has Emily arrested.

Charles, however, is not a perfect gentleman when Faith shows up at Emily’s house thinking she will surprise Emily for Christmas (because Faith didn’t tell her about the trading houses thing either). This creates some hilarious interactions and arguments during which Charles tries to send Faith home but can’t because there are no buses leaving the little town until Christmas Day.

As I mentioned above, this is one I really enjoy watching each year.

I own this one, but I just found out yesterday that it is currently free on YouTube (that’s as I am writing this in December 2024). You can also watch it on Amazon with a premium subscription, Apple TV for purchase, The Roku Channel, Vudu, and YouTube Premium.

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*This post is part of the Comfy, Cozy Christmas Link Up for 2024. If you have a Christmas/holiday post you would like to share you can find the link HERE or at the top of the page here on my blog.