I enjoyed this holiday telefilm. It does feature the spirit of Christmas, has that holiday feeling and the story worked quite well and found it enjoyable. “Six Degrees of Santa” is recommended!
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TITLE: Six Degrees of Santa
FILM YEAR: 2022
DURATION: 80 Minutes
CHANNEL: Lifetime
Based on the book by Donna VanLiere
Directed by Michael Kennedy
Written by Shannon Latimer
Producer: Jordana Aarons
Creative Producer: Cassandra Keenan, Cassie Keenan
Executive Producers: Sebastian Battro, Tom Berry, Laurence Braun, Louisa Cadywould, Suzanne Chapman, Barbara Fisher, Breanne Laplante, Linda Stregger
Music: Macarena Criscuolo
Cinematography: Ryan Knight
Edited by Peter Denes
Casting by Larissa Mair
Production Design by Patrick Gautheir
Art Direction: Richard Brooks-Racicot
Set Decoration: Sam Melkic
Costume Design by Erin Roche
Starring:
Kathryn Davis as Harper McNevin
Steve Lund as Jason Sparks
Kimberly Huie as Pauline McNevin
Ainara Alleyne as Dani
Alex Jade as Zoey
Dorian Grey as Elliot
Michael Brown as Derrick
Charlie Ebbs as Leonard
Christmas enthusiast Harper has created a program, Six Degrees of Santa. When Harper’s own gift lands in the hands of a leading internet entrepreneur, Jason, he’s convinced that the original Santa might be his soul mate.
It is time for Holiday film 28 for 2023 and this time, it’s the Lifetime film, “Six Degrees of Santa” directed by Michael Kennedy (“The Kids in the Hall”, “Good Witch”, “Little Mosque on the Prairie”) and written by Shannon Latimer (“Ghosts of Christmas Past”, “Christmas in Washington”, “My Favorite Christmas Tree”).
The film stars Kathryn Davis (“All About for Love”, “Jupiter’s Legacy”, “The Wedding Planners”), Steve Lund (“Bitten”, “Haven”, “Schitt’s Creek”), Kimberly Huie (“Rookie Blue”, “Grey’s Anatomy”), Ainara Alleyne (“:Ainara’s Bookshelf”, “Ranger Rob”), Alex Jade (“Designated Survivor”, “Samanthology”) and more.
In this holiday film, we have a story of Harper McNevin (portrayed by Kathryn Davis), a person who loves Christmas, recently divorced mother and has a Christmas project called “Six Degrees of Santa”.
The project is part of her mother Pauline’s (portrayed by Kimberly Huie) business, McNevin Paper Company. Purchase a gift that is dear to you and you put it in a Six Degrees Box and choose a complete stranger or whoever you want. And the person can enjoy the gift for a day or two. Then the person repacks it and gives it to another person and so on until it reaches the sixth person who keeps the gift. The goal is to show the spirit of giving during the holidays, leaving it to Christmas magic and it’s anonymous.
But Harper learns from her mother that they are not sure how the family business will be, as business has slowed and they need to have a wonderful Christmas shopping season to help keep business afloat. And Harper tries her best to keep her mother’s thoughts positive.
While promoting her project, Harper visits the office and visits her old working space where Sparks Technology is located and while there, she sees the owner Jason Sparks (portrayed by Steve Lund) promoting the SparkLTree. Harper can’t help but give the whole Sparks promotion a side eye and when the two see each other at the elevator, Jason tries to talk to her about the Christmas Tree and Harper acts cold to him saying that his business doesn’t promote the spirit of Christmas and hurts other businesses.
For Jason, he can’t understand why this woman is so mean to him. But Harper is very defensive as she looks at Christmas as important but protective of the small businesses who are being shut down due to big businesses.
While at his office, he sees a gift (inside a “Six Degrees Box”) and inside the gift is a popular Christmas book, “Northbound Elf” (which happens to be a favorite Christmas book that Harper purchased as the first Santa that she gave out). For Jason, he absolutely loved the book as a child and has been looking for a copy of it. But with the message from this secret Santa, he wants to know the person that sent it. Because he believes it may be from a woman he may strongly connect with.
So, Jason ends up going to the source of the present, Harper, who is responsible for Six Degrees of Santa. And he proposes a business collaboration, he will help foot traffic and marketing to McNevin Paper Company, if she will help him find the person that gave him the book.
Harper, who is not wanting to admit that she was the person that sent the book, comes up with a plan to get her friend Zoey (portrayed by Alex Jade) to pretend she was the person that sent it.
But will this plan work out?
For the most part, I like it when I discover a holiday film that may not have super starpower and creates this interest in the talent starring in the film. Both Kathryn Davis and Steve Lund were great and both have appeared in numerous holiday films. And considering how I’ve already done several holiday marathons and have watched many holiday films, I would have seen these two in leading roles in a holiday film before. But this is the first time for me.
But nevertheless, I enjoyed this holiday telefilm. It does feature the spirit of Christmas, has that holiday feeling and the story worked quite well and found it enjoyable. “Six Degrees of Santa” is recommended!
