A Biltmore Christmas

Built more or less for entertainment

I have a confession to make. I’ve never seen Miracle on 34th Street.

I know. How can I call myself a reviewer of Christmas movies if I’ve never seen Miracle on 34th Street? It’s like, the quintessential Christmas movie. It is the fertile loin from which all other Christmas movies have sprung. It’s a motherfuckin’ classic.

And yeah, I dunno, I just never watched it.

Here’s everything I know about Miracle on 34th Street: it’s black and white. There’s something about Macy’s. There’s a guy in like, a fedora and overcoat. And there’s the line “every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.” Or maybe that’s Tinkerbell’s line from Peter Pan. Anyway, I’m like 99% sure there’s something about angels. Who (just extrapolating here) perform miracles? Like I said, I’ve never actually seen this film.

(Is this a still from Miracle on 34th Street? I have no clue!)

But the human mind has evolved to recognize patterns, which in prehistoric times helped us not eat bad mushrooms and/or get mauled by lions and today helps us recognize that reading seven best-of lists and forty thousand Amazon reviews before purchasing a lint roller is a waste of time, though unfortunately does not stop us from doing it. So over the past few years my human mind has detected a pattern of Christmas movies where an angel/fairy/dead person helps teach the protagonist about the spirit of Christmas, and I’m starting to think the movie Miracle on 34th Street had something to do with it—or at least gave it a major PR bump after it languished in the wake of A Christmas Carol.

A Biltmore Christmas is one of those movies. Sort of. Because A Biltmore Christmas is sort of two movies. It’s the 1947 black-and-white holiday classic His Merry Wife! in which an angel helps unite a pair of lovers at Christmastime (nod to Miracle on 34th Street? I could tell you if only I’d watched it). And then there’s the actual movie A Biltmore Christmas about a screenwriter who’s been tapped to write the contemporary remake of His Merry Wife! but wants to change the happy ending to make it more realistic. In order to inspire her, the head of the Hollywood studio books her an all-expenses-paid trip to the Biltmore, where His Merry Wife! was originally filmed.

I realize this may raise some questions. Like: is the Biltmore a real place? I had this question too, so I asked my own Christmas angel (aka Google) and…it is! More critically, is this actually how screenwriting works? Because one could potentially forgive screenwriters for not understanding how advertising, event planning, social media influencing, book publishing, and veterinarianing work. And if they’re unable to find out, it’s probably because they don’t have a Google Christmas angel of their own. But like…shouldn’t screenwriters understand how screenwriting works? I personally have no clue how screenwriting works (despite being a fly on the wall for so many Christmas romcom writing sessions), but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t involve all-expenses-paid research trips to five-star resorts and if it does, I’m quitting my day job.

(Seriously, look at this place. I’d rewrite a Christmas romcom to stay here.)

Anyway, our heroine heads to the Biltmore and there’s like twenty minutes of free hotel PR (which frankly worked, not gonna lie I was on their website checking room prices), and then there’s an incident with a magic hourglass and she finds herself on the set of His Merry Wife! It’s 1947, the costumes are bangin’, there’s a dashing leading man who spits witty repartée and you know what? It’s charming as fuck.

Like, it was cute enough that I’d probably watch it even if it wasn’t a Christmas rom-com. The dialogue was snappy, the plot was unusually legit for the genre, and there was legit chemistry between the romantic leads. I actually enjoyed it. And if you’re wondering why I spend most of December watching movies I don’t necessarily enjoy, you’re not alone—I am wondering the same thing.

(The star of A Biltmore Christmas would also like to know what the hell my problem is.)

I’m not going to spoil the plot because if you’re planning to watch a new-release Hallmark Christmas rom-com, this could be your jam. But it did inspire me to get back to doing Christmas tree ratings, so here it is:

A Biltmore Christmas. Five Christmas trees.