"Six Families Navigate The Holiday Season"
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What You Need To Know:
Overall, HOLIDAZED has good production value, with exciting storylines artfully woven together to connect each household. The first three episodes of season one of the series have a moral worldview emphasizing the importance of family. However, Episode Three heavily features a same-sex relationship and one same-sex kiss, as well as a scene with a fortune teller, so MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for younger children.
Content:
More Detail:
HOLIDAZED is a series streaming on the Hallmark Channel that follows six families living in the same cul-de-sac in Oak Bay as they prepare to navigate the holiday season and all the complications that come with it. The stories interweave throughout the series. The first episode introduces the show’s characters, with each following episode focusing on one specific family in the days leading up to Christmas.
Episode One introduces all the families living in a cul-de-sac in Oak Bay as they prepare for Christmas. The Manetti-Hanahans are decorating their house with lights, to the displeasure of their next-door neighbors, the Camarenas. Complicating matters, Katie Manetti-Hanahan and Kevin Camarena are dating — to the displeasure of Kevin’s sister, Gaby, who remembers Katie as her high school bully.
Elsewhere in the neighborhood, Jennifer Lewin and her husband Mike are preparing for Jennifer’s recently divorced parents to arrive for Christmas and her mother’s new boyfriend. Meanwhile, Josh Hill is having trouble slowing down from his fast-paced city life as he visits his parents before he moves to Australia. Lucy Woods is getting ready for her sister Sylvie to arrive; the two have a complicated relationship, and Lucy is apprehensive.
Finally, the Lins are ready to celebrate Christmas — and their son Ted’s engagement to boyfriend Marcus — without the presence of Grandma Lin, who not only doesn’t know about the engagement but is also unaware Ted is gay. Her unexpected arrival after a canceled flight throws the household into turmoil, as Grandma Lin mistakenly thinks Marcus is engaged to Ted’s sister Ella.
Episode Two focuses on Josh, his parents, and his growing relationship with Oak Bay police officer Nora Jacobs and her son, Theo. After Josh accidentally hits a fire hydrant with his car, Nora, a former high school classmate, takes pity on him and gives him community service, as opposed to going to court.
Josh’s community service involves helping the town prepare for their Christmas festival. There, he meets Nora’s son Theo, and the pair strike up a friendship as they attempt to construct the perfect ornament to win the town’s contest. As Josh grows closer to Nora and Theo, he starts to question if his fast-paced, hard-working life is what he wants.
Episode Three follows the Lin family as they scramble to trick Grandma Lin into thinking Ella and Marcus are engaged. Ted explains to Marcus that he and his grandmother are very close and, as he works with her at the family’s company, he doesn’t want to tell her he’s gay and change the way she sees him. Marcus agrees to go along with the charade, and the three accompany Grandma Lin on various outings as she plans the wedding.
The wedding planning changes how Ella, Ted, and Marcus think about weddings — Ella, staunchly opposed to marriage and romance, begins to feel that a relationship might not be such a bad thing. At the same time, Ted and Marcus realize they haven’t been planning their wedding equally. The episode ends on a cliffhanger, as Grandma Lin sees Ted and Marcus kissing through a window.
HOLIDAZED is a fun Christmas series from Hallmark. It features exciting plot lines for each of the six families it follows and funny performances from the cast. The interconnected storylines keep each episode exciting and fresh. The dialogue can sometimes get cheesy, but HOLIDAZED’s sweet emotional moments make up for it.
Overall, HOLIDAZED have a moral worldview. In the first three episodes, the characters have their conflicts set up, and the audience sees how they attempt to deal with them — whether it’s through reconnecting with friends and family, learning to get along with others, or being true to themselves. The first three episodes contain no strong language, sexual content, nudity, or violence. Episode Three’s plot revolves around a gay couple, and there is one same-sex kissing scene. In the same episode, characters visit a fortune teller but denounce it as false. MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for younger children.
