Note: This holiday season I’ll be reviewing choice Hallmark Christmas movies. Assuming I don’t lose my mind first.

First and foremost, The Spirit of Christmas is a Christmas movie like Die Hard is. Which is to say it’s not one at all. (I am very prepared to fight you about this opinion.) The story happens to take place during the Christmas season for no particular reason. It tells the story of an unfeeling lawyer Kate, who is less unlucky in love and more revels in being emotionless. Can any living person melt the icy bonds on her heart?

Kate is tasked with closing the sale of a quaint bed and breakfast in New England before the end of the year. Unfortunately, they can’t find anyone to do an inspection because the local rubes believe the place is haunted by Daniel, the original owner of the home. Kate, being a cynical big city go-getter, has no time for the quaint superstitions of the plebes milling about the small town, and goes to personally oversee the closing.

Upon arrival, she finds the current caretaker about to close for the year a mere 12 days before Christmas. Befuddled by the simple man’s ignorance, she asks why he’s closing up at such a peak time. He implies it’s an agreement he has with the ghost. Rebuffing his suggestion to stay clear, she decides to stay in the house while finishing the closing. It doesn’t take long for the spectre to take corporeal form, and begin his torment.

Through a series of cat and mouse events, Kate finally learns that it’s not an intruder in the house. Daniel takes actual form for the 12 days before Christmas every year. Why does Daniel have to do this? They never get to that part. Daniel was murdered under mysterious circumstances 90 years ago, and sticks around the property to be ruggedly handsome and eat profusely. (He seriously is always eating.) I don’t feel like I should have to explain at this point since it’s a Hallmark movie, but Kate finally finds love in Daniel. Who is a lich. Only in the icy hands of the living dead can Kate feel a fiery passion in her…heart. This is Hallmark, nothing is happening in anyone’s loins.

I’m going to be honest, at this point I sort of nodded off. I was in and out of consciousness, but what I can tell is Kate goes back to New York, discovers Daniel had a daughter before he died (which is not germane to the plot at all), and risks her job to go back to the Zombie Lord’s lair. They decide to throw a Christmas party, which was Daniel’s tradition when human blood pumped through his veins, and he wasn’t animated through black magic. Through a series of events I’m still very confused about, other ghosts are also at the party, and Daniel learns the truth about his murder. Kate and Daniel kiss, and this causes Kate to pass out. Daniel’s dark arts at play. He’s then given a choice: stay and rule over the dominion of man or go back to the spirit realm. Since Daniel found the only living being uncaring enough to be able to rule an undead kingdom by his side, he chooses to stay on Earth. How he gets to stay they don’t really say. Is he just alive again? Is he still a lich? Can he actually leave the property? None of these very obvious questions are asked or answered. Kate rises from her unnatural slumber to find Daniel tromping through the woods suspiciously. I can only assume he has begun raising a skeleton army. Despite the earlier witchcraft, Kate risks another embrace with her Dark Liege.

The Spirit of Christmas is The Shining for middle-aged soccer moms.