On the twelfth day of Christmas, Netflix sent to me: A Golden Christmas, starring Andrea Roth and Nicholas Brendon as Jessica and Michael, who met as 9-year-olds one summer and fell in puppy love, only to part ways and not see each other before each marrying someone else, having a child, divorcing, and deciding to move back to that small town of their childhood. Jessica and Michael were introduced by a golden retriever who Michael followed into the woods to where Jessica was playing; Michael adopted the dog afterward. More importantly, they seem to have never told each other their names.
Jessica, who knows that her parents have wanted to sell the family home for some time, thinks it would be a good idea to surprise them at Christmas with the news that she is going to buy it and live there with her son. Unfortunately, they have already found a buyer in Michael, who is trying to sell his own house nearby and move in with his daughter and golden retriever. Jessica pleads with Michael to let her have the house, because it is so important to her suddenly as she remembers her idyllic childhood summer, but she does not go so far as to explain that her fond memory is of a boy she met and his golden retriever. If she did, it would have been a very quick movie.
Instead, Jessica schemes to cheat Michael out of the house one way or another, going so far as to thwart the sale of his own house to some interested buyers, which is quite a dick move. Meanwhile Michael is led by his dog to the old childhood meeting place in the woods where he and Jessica buried an old tin lunchbox as a time capsule. Both the lunchbox and the dog are remarkably well preserved considering that they should be at least 25 years old. When Jessica sees the lunchbox she puts two and two together, more or less, and tries to make it up to Michael.
The film slowly draws to a close on Christmas as Michael celebrates the sale of his house and reconciles with Jessica. The magic golden retriever has puppies and leaves them immediately in the care of Michael and Jessica’s children, running off into the woods like The Littlest Hobo, having finally accomplished her mission and left behind what can only be her magical do-gooding spawn. And indeed, there is a Golden Christmas 2 on Netflix, which apparently stars Jessica’s parents after they move to Florida, helping another estranged couple rediscover love through the healing properties of dogs.
On the eleventh day of Christmas, Netflix sent to me: Amy Acker in a film directed by Jason Priestley that has one wildly inappropriate moment after another. Dear Santa is the story of spoiled rich girl Crystal, who is threatened with being cut off by her parents if she does not find some direction in life. As she admires some new shoes in a shop window, a nearby mailman drops a child’s letter to Santa, which is carried on the wind by fate itself and smacks against the shop window.
On the tenth day of Christmas, Netflix sent to me: a surprisingly thoughtful film about the true meaning of Christianity, instead of the usual platitudes about the true meaning of Christmas. I was hesitant to watch this because it was made by a Christian film company, and my experience with Christian-backed films is that they tend to be more concerned about proselytizing than telling a story; but the script for Christmas With a Capital C is not about preaching to the converted.
On the ninth day of Christmas, Netflix sent to me: the sequel to a movie I’ve never seen, starring Jenny McCarthy (!) as the daughter of Santa Claus (!!). Mary Class (pronounced Claus) is a high-powered businesswoman in New York as the film opens; her husband Luke (Dean McDermott) is a postal worker who breeds and trains sled dogs. On the verge of closing a big deal with Colin Nottingham (Kris Holden-Reid), Mary is called home to the North Pole shortly before Christmas because her father Chris (Paul Sorvino – !!!) has decided to retire. 
On the eighth day of Christmas, Netflix sent to me: “a very special Christmas episode of The Twilight Zone,” which is how Liza McCann (Nicole DeBoer) describes it when she is called out of the blue to visit her estranged father in the small town of Hollyville. She brings her young son Mason, who is excited to see his grandfather and to spend time in a place that not only appears to be crazy about Christmas, but may be the base of operations for Santa Claus himself. 
On the seventh day of Christmas, Netflix sent to me: another ABC Family Christmas movie starring Christina Milian. Needless to say, after the trauma of Christmas Cupid I was reluctant to press play on this one. This time she plays Angie, a streetwise New York deli clerk whose family doesn’t respect her space; you can tell she’s from New York by her Ratzo Rizzo accent.
On the sixth day of Christmas, Netflix gave to me: an unlikely tale about ambitious mall manager Jennifer (Laura VanDeVoort), who hires a hot guy from the neighbourhood to dance and show his abs before sitting down to hear the kids’ wish lists; a little eye candy for the moms, as it were. The winning candidate, David (Nick Zano), wants to use his winnings to fund the legal appeal for his family’s business, a local pizzaria threatened with closure so that a new office tower can be built.
On the fifth day of Christmas, Netflix gave to me: one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Christmas Cupid is a painful and ultimately offensive remake of A Christmas Carol starring Christina Milian, whose career was looking so promising when she was in Torque. Here she plays Sloane Spencer, a PR executive and all-around control freak whose impending birthday publicity blitz for party-girl ingenue Caitlin Quinn (Ashley Benson, Pretty Little Liars) takes a dark turn when Caitlin chokes to death on a giant olive from her martini. Not to worry, though: Caitlin returns as Sloane’s personal Jacob Marley, presenting her with ghosts of Christmas past, present and future in the form of her corresponding boyfriends. “Change your ways,” warns Caitlin, unable to be more specific than that.
On the fourth day of Christmas, Netflix gave to me: All She Wants for Christmas, a much less lighthearted holiday movie than we tend to expect. Monica Keena (Undeclared) is Noelle, the bookkeeper of a small town family company that makes Christmas decorations. The company is in trouble, she discovers, because the late owner had been subsidizing it from his own personal fortune; but with him gone, his heirs have arrived to decide whether or not the company should shut its doors. This would be a blow not just to the local economy, but also to the spirit of a town that loves Christmas only slightly less than Stars Hollow.
On the third day of Christmas, Netflix gave to me: an appalling idea for a holiday film starring Melissa Joan Hart and Mario Lopez. Holiday in Handcuffs is the story of underachieving artist called Trudie who is terrified of disappointing her parents (Timothy Bottoms and Markie Post), who need everything to be perfect at Christmas. Rather than admit the fact that she has been making up stories about a perfect boyfriend, she uses a prop flintlock from her restaurant job to kidnap an engaged lawyer called David. She takes him on a road trip to the secluded log cabin where her family will be spending the holidays, and somehow convinces them that if he protests, it’s just because he’s nervous and is trying to be funny. Meanwhile, David’s fiancee is trying to find out what happened to him.
