Approved for 12+

This is Our Christmas

This Is Our Christmas tells the story of the Foxworth clan of Beverly Hills, who, when faced with hardship, experience a true Christmas miracle. When Aunt Maggie’s bakery is threatened with foreclosure, teenaged Ravin decides to help. But when even her best efforts fall short, a higher power can still deliver.
2
Negative Rating
12345
SexLanguageViolenceDrugsNudityOther
3
Positive Rating
12345
FaithIntegrity

Dove Review

If you’ve watched movies like Heaven Can Wait, It’s a Wonderful Life or even the much less remembered or heralded Unlikely Angel, which starred Dolly Parton, you have all the elements that make This Is Our Christmas what it is—a sweet Christmas miracle tale in which all the nasty attitudes disappear and there are happy endings for all.

The movie opens with Angelina Foxworth, a wealthy Beverly Hills socialite, getting killed in an auto accident that totals her chaffeured Rolls Royce. Angelina ends up in limbo, where a spiky haired gatekeeper decides who gets into heaven and who doesn’t. Seven years after the accident, she asks to return to Earth but is initially denied. Angelina takes the Lord’s name in vain in response. A voice—sounding a bit like a game-show announcer —says, “Who used My name in vain? You may never use My name in vain again! Place her on probation!” And then, she’s rewarded with a trip back to Earth.

Ravin, having just learned she is to be sent to her aunt’s against her will, declares, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” But all the language concerns take place in the first seven minutes.

Angelina’s trip back to Earth represents what moviegoers recognize as “One Last Chance to Earn Her Wings” by making what the gatekeeper calls “a very significant change in [her] family.” Ravin, Angelina’s spoiled-brat teen, is being sent away for Christmas by her rich, clueless father James and stepmother. Ravin is going to her cooky aunt Maggie, Angelina’s sister, who has a struggling 30-year-old bakery and is about to be evicted by an ill-humored creditor. There’s also a friendly deacon running a soup kitchen for kids, and it, too, is in trouble, thanks to a burst pipe.

Maggie takes a tumble that keeps her out of work, and it’s up to Ravin and Maggie’s assistant Nina to save the day. They run the bakery with help from the ghost Angelina, and they stumble upon a recipe so tasty an investor wants to buy it with more than enough money to save the bakery. “It isn’t every day that you go from the edge of bankruptcy to becoming a household brand,” Maggie declares. Maggie then gives the proceeds to save the soup kitchen.

Ravin is no longer the spoiled brat. Maggie is no longer struggling. The soup kitchen can keep on serving. Even the creditor is invited to the celebration, where he thanks Maggie for paying in full. Angelina goes back to Heaven’s waiting lobby, where she’s promised she doesn’t have to spend any more time in limbo. Even Santa Claus and an elf jet in from some other movie to retrieve Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer who inexplicably gets lost in the backyard.

This Is Our Christmas earns Approval for Ages 12+.

The Dove Take

This Is Our Christmas takes a sweet familiar path to make sure everybody goes home happy.

Dove Rating Details

1
Faith

Angelica asks God's help

2
Integrity

None

0
Sex

None

2
Language

"Oh, God!" and "Hell yes;" and "I'm mad as hell..."

0
Violence

None

0
Drugs

None

0
Nudity

None

0
Other

The idea that one can earn their way into Heaven

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