Author Reveals What Sets Her Latest Christmas Movie Apart From the Others

Published: December 18, 2025

By Kayla DeKraker

Famous inspirational author Karen Kingsbury revealed that her latest Christmas fare, THE CHRISTMAS RING, was different from her normal pattern in one major way: The movie came before the book.

“It was a movie that kind of came out of nowhere, and it happened in the spring where we had a script and we were kind of an outline, and thought, you know, this could be a good Christmas movie for the season,” Kingsbury told Movieguide®.

THE CHRISTMAS RING follows Vanessa, a young military widow searching for a family heirloom, a ring she lost years ago. During her search, she meets Howard and Ben Miller, a father and son who run an antique store. Vanessa and Ben grow close, but are hesitant to jump into a relationship, because both are still grieving their deceased spouses.

Once the script was finished, Kingsbury realized the movie would hit theaters and needed to have a companion novel.

“That’s when I just decided, ‘You know what, I’m going to take a couple of weeks and set it aside and write the book,’” she said. “I had my agent scrambling to try to find somebody who would say, ‘we can work with it this quickly to get it out for Christmas time.’ Thomas Nelson ended up being one of the publishers that was super excited to do that, but they were the most passionate.”

The movie attracted a wideranging cast with incredible talent, including Jana Kramer, Benjamin Hollingsworth, Kelsey Grammer, and Jessie James Decker — all of whom Kingsbury credits to the Lord.

“We prayed and prayed and prayed like, ‘Lord, please bring us the right people for the for the part. And I cannot tell you, I can take no credit.’”

The movie is one of Kingsbury’s best, with “a strong Christian worldview. It extols Scripture, faith, prayer, and the Christmas Nativity story. There are also many positive moral, redemptive themes,” according to the Movieguide® review.

“It kind of is a nod to some of the movies we grew up with in the ’90s and early 2000s that explore those things that aren’t necessarily like slapstick comedy kind of stuff, but stuff that is more eternal and introspective and timeless in nature,” Hollingsworth said of THE CHRISTMAS RING.

“And I think that there’s something intentional about going to see a movie as a community. It’s similar to worship — you know, saying a prayer at home is different than going and saying a prayer with a hundred strangers. Like, it’s just different and it has a different feel to it,” he continued.

“And I think there’s that element to this too, where going through an experience and having these shared emotions is something that’s truly meant to be watched in a theater. And I’m hoping that people will get off their couches and go see this one because it is special,” Hollingsworth added.

THE CHRISTMAS RING is available for rent on Prime Video.

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