toast and kent sometimes disagree: T&K's Xmas (2025) Advent Caledar

2025, d. Lucie Guest - Hallmark/W

The Draw: Kitties!

HERstory: After an opening montage of cats playing and being assholes, knocking shit over, we jump back 30 years in time to see young Olivia spending Christmas with her Aunt Esther as her parents jet off to London. There's a cat in a tree which she hears. The scene is maybe 30 seconds long and tells us...nothing.

Smash cut to present day and Olivia (Erin Cahill) is looking at a new condo. She seems to like it but can't quite afford it. Smash cut to her at her old condo, where she's having a business meeting, which is interrupted when she gets a message about a meeting regarding her Great Aunt Esther's estate. Olivia is inheriting half of her aunts cat cafe business... the other half is owned by Dr. Ben King and she wonders if he's interested in buying her out. Turns out she missed the funeral even. She seems like she was so connected to her dead aunt.

Smash cut to Kane Vet Clinic, where Dr. Ben King works with his sister, and apparently, despite the packed waiting room, money is tight? He's the type of vet that goes an extra mile (sometimes literally) for his clients.

She goes to her aunt's PST, Felicity, NY(?!?), to stay and check out the cat cafe until it's sold. She spies Dr. Ben King in the window of his clinic and is instantly smitten. She then walks into a Christmas tree. She goes to the Catnip Cafe and, hey, cats! And they're all up for adoption. But apparently they're not very particular about their beans.

Olivia wants to sell the business, as she has a developer on the line, but Dr. Ben King loves the cafe and its impact on the community, so he has no interest in selling. She asks Ben to buy her out but all his money is tied up in the clinic, so they're at an impasse, and their early flirtation has turned to dagger eyes.

Flashback! Olivia replaces bulbs in a string of lights. Wow!

Olivia consults her lawyer. Dr. Ben King bitches to his sister about Olivia. She asks him if he's bringing anyone to dinner, as he's not had a relationship in 7 years. That's called foreshadowing.

Olivia is staying at her aunt's house preparing it for the bank sale. Dr. Ben King has a key to the house, because he and Esther were better friends than Olivia and her auntie. He wanted to grab the book which is all the plan for some big cat to-do, an annual battery of events they hold that he can't do on his own. Olivia offers to help so long as he doesn't get in the way of selling the business. Already Dr. Ben King is scheming that three weeks of helping at the cafe may just change her mind.

First event, cat sock puppets. Olivia didn't read the script and she's a nervous performer. And there's like 4 kids in attendance and one old lady. By the end only the old lady is left. And it only was only 3 minutes long. Olivia thinks she can market the event better and get bigger crowds (if not a better performance). And then Marilee (Kimberly Sustad) from Nine Lives of Christmas/The Nine Kittens of Christmas shows up and...flirts with Ben pretty heavily despite implying she's still with Sam.

Montage. Olivia markets the hell out of the puppet show.

Olivia walks past a tree. Flashback. Lil' Olivia finds a kitten in a tree. Olivia's Christmas tree has been delivered to her aunt's doorstep so she goes and asks Dr. Ben King if he would help her decorate. They decorate and have the usual Hallmark getting-to-know you falling-in-like chit-chat. They get over their animosity, and get reluctantly flirty.

The next day, the attendance for the new event is popping, although, there's it's not a puppet show, but instead the attendees each grab a cat and a Christmas kid's book and read to the cats, and then draw pictures or something. You know, a real social community event.

Flashback to lil' Olivia reading to the kitty she rescued.

Olivia sets up a cat adoption booth at the Mistletoe Market where mistletoe is strewn from the lights everywhere and if you're caught under the mistletoe you either have to kiss someone or sing a carol. Olivia and Dr. Ben King run into the developer Olivia has been talking to, putting a bit of damper on the evening. Olivia gets invited to Dr. Ben King's sister's family for dinner. Dr. Ben King invites Olivia over to cook her dish for dinner and they can head over together.

After dinner they learn Dr. Ben King's sister's pregnant again. Dr. Ben King is stunned because he doesn't have the forward momentum in his life that he wants. After the dinner party Dr. Ben King and Olivia talk about whether they want kids (good thing there's been a lot of talk about adoption in this film).

Flashback. Lil' Olivia is told by her nomadic parents that the kitty she found can't come with them, it wouldn't be fair. But aunt Esther agrees to keep the cat, delighting lil' Olivia.

Next event, kitty pyjama party and movie night. It's a big success. Afterwards, Dr. Ben King and Olivia talk about failed relationships while cleaning up and how lonely Dr. Ben King is. They kiss but are interrupted by the grumpy old cat who has not yet got adopted. It seems to like Olivia like it's liked no one else.

Aww, smushface!!!

Olivia and Dr. Ben King decorate for the Christmas Party, and Olivia has recruited the community to come help out. She seems to have really found her place, whether she knows it yet or not. She receives and express post letter from her aunt's estate lawyer, and it's a picture of lil' Olivia with the kitty she found. Dr. Ben King tells her it was the inspiration for Esther to start the cat cafe. It's a touching moment where Olivia's defences are down, and Dr. Ben King makes a play to try keeping Olivia in town, to walk away from her life in California for upstate New York (Buffalo again) where winter has barely any snow an it's like 15 degrees Celsius outside all the time. But Olivia isn't ready to give up her life, as much as the town and its people and Dr. Ben King have been endeared to her, and she on them. And Dr. Ben King says maybe she shouldn't attend the party, so Olivia tries to leave town, but if a snow storm doesn't turn her around, running into a mechanic who has a rescue cat from the cafe will.

Olivia gets to the party only to find that Dr. Ben King has already signed the papers, but the contractor has befriended a cat who he wants to adopt so he's fine with not proceeding with he deal and rips up the contract. Olivia has found home with the cafe, the town, and Dr. Ben King... and the smush-faced grumpy cat who's taken a liking to Olivia.

The Formulae:Big city girl with a big city job winds up in a perfect small town where she finds love and community and a future unlike what she had imagined for herself. Rescuing a struggling small town business with her big-city wiles. Decorating a house way too late in the season. A Christmas Eve deadline.

Unformulae: Espresso, instead of hot chocolate? (At one point Olivia says to Ben "I never thought I'd meet someone who shared my appreciation for espresso") And sometimes wine. And Jazz music. And an opening song by a name brand artist (Brad Paisley).

True Calling? No, because it's *almost* Christmas at the Catnip Cafe. The film ends on Christmas Eve.

The Rewind: The opening flashback I had to rewatch three times just to make sure I wasn't missing any important information. I wasn't. Olivia isn't even called by name in this sequence nor is Aunt Esther...which was the very least it could do.

But really, the opening credits, with cats fancy prancing and playing about, worth rewatching over and over. You can put it on mute if Brad Paisley isn't your thing.

The Regulars: Erin Cahill and Paul Campbell... two Hallmark legends, this can't be their first mix-and-match. Ian Collins who plays Frank, the Catnip Cafe's only(?) employee and doesn't know from coffee beans, has been in many, many Hallmarkies, Hallmark included. Meganne Young, who plays Ben's sister is a Hallmarkie newbie. Jess Brown who plays Olivia's best friend/real estate agent has been in a couple recent Hallmarks, and one way back in 2017. Frances Flanagan who plays Aunt Esther is all over Hallmarkies for the past six years.