Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Christmas By Design’ on Hallmark, A Holiday Fashion Mash-Up That’s Not Quite Our Pajama Jammy-Jam

Hallmark’s second weekend of holiday movies continues with Christmas by Design. This romance stars Rebecca Dalton and Jonathan Keltz and offers everything you want from a Hallmark holiday movie. She’s a big-city fashion designer. He’s a small-town mechanic. Can they team up and design the… perfect pair of pajamas? Wait, what is this movie about??

CHRISTMAS BY DESIGN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Rebecca Dalton (Good Witch) plays Charlotte, an up-and-coming luxury fashion designer with her own boutique in New York City. She has square footage in the five boroughs and an employee and an online store. She has to be doing well, right? Wrong! She’s wrestling with designer’s block just as her ceiling starts leaking. Making matters worse, Charlotte gets a call from home telling her that the plug is being pulled on the Elfcapades. And because the stakes aren’t high enough, Charlotte’s one employee Margo (Adriana Vasquez) entered her in the annual Warwick Christmas Design Challenge. If she can design a male and female holiday-inspired look with a family-friendly feeling in time for the Christmas Eve runway show, she could earn a place designing for one of NYC’s biggest department stores.

How does a luxury designer find the right inspo to design looks for a family store like Warwick’s, especially when the water’s been shut off in their studio? They go back home to Connecticut and face not only the end of her beloved Elfcapades, but also her mom’s new partner Rick (Tim Progosh), a family that isn’t too happy about her moving to the big city, and an ex-fiancé who is now the mayor. Fortunately for her, she bumps into the town’s mechanic and most eligible bachelor Spencer (Reign‘s Jonathan Keltz).

While these two get off to an adversarial start (see Memorable Dialogue below), Charlotte and Spencer grow closer as he helps bring a small-town feel to her designs and she keeps the local women at bay. And if you know where this is going then, well, I guess you’ve seen a Hallmark movie before!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The pact that these two make is similar to the one in Holidate, the fashion design angle was part of last year’s Well Suited for Christmas, and this is the second Hallmark holiday movie of 2023 with a mechanic as the love interest.

Performance Worth Watching: Honestly, and I hope it’s become apparent through my dozens of Hallmark movie reviews this year alone that I am in no way a “hater,” I can’t think of a performance in Christmas by Design that stood out above the rest.

Memorable Dialogue: “How do you two know each other?” “I hit him with my car today.”

A Holiday Tradition: This tiny Connecticut town celebrates the Elfcapades every year, which is a 12-day stretch filled with holiday activities like The Night Market (which unfortunately involves zero vampires) and the Pajamboree, which is a jamboree wherein everyone wears pajamas. Obviously. Why is this event called Elfcapades when, as far as I can tell, it involves no elves? That remains a Christmas mystery.

There’s also the annual Warwick Christmas Design Challenge, which I think is like if Macy’s held its own mini Project Runway challenge that culminated with a Christmas Eve runway show. I love how even though every holiday movie is so family-focused, every single one of them expects families to be out of the house on Christmas Eve attending a dance, fundraiser, tree lighting, concert, festival, live TV show taping, or holiday-themed runway show.

Does the Title Make Any Sense?: This movie is based on a book titled Jingle Jammies, which is an objectively brilliant title. It’s still October but I will single out changing the title to Christmas by Design as the biggest mistake Hallmark has made this holiday season.

Our Take: Changing the title from Jingle Jammies is actually emblematic of Christmas by Design’s biggest problem: there’s a whole lot of foregoing quirkiness and uniqueness in favor of the same old same old. Instead, Christmas by Design follows the pattern provided by hundreds of Hallmark movies over the last decade, from the small-town traditions and Christmas Eve competition right down to the “New York City? Yeeeeuuck!” attitude from Spencer. Yeah, the pattern makes a wearable garment. That’s why we keep using it! But Christmas by Design doesn’t do anything bold with the pattern, like cutting from an unexpected fabric.

Compare Christmas by Design to Checkin’ It Twice, so far 2023’s most by-the-numbers Hallmark movie. While it was pleasantly predictable, there was just a bit more depth to the performances, heart to the character arcs, and originality to the jokes. Christmas by Design doesn’t go as deep, despite having lots of opportunities to do so.

Like — what if Charlotte took her assistant back home with her? Or what if Spencer actually used Charlotte as more of a buffer against the town’s thirsty ladies? What if we got a scene with Charlotte’s super cranky brother-in-law where she found out what his deal is? What if we just saw all 12 events of the Elfcapades? What if her mom’s new boyfriend needed a makeover? What if anyone needed a makeover? Why wasn’t there a makeover in this fashion-centric holiday romance? It’s little tweaks like these that could make a formulaic Hallmark romance stand out just a bit more. Unfortunately, Christmas by Design blends in with all the other holiday movies.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Christmas by Design is a few seasons out of fashion.