Christmas at the Palace

Review by Janelle Leonard

Plot

Planning the holiday skating pageant for the kingdom of San Senova, Katie brings the royal family together. With her Christmas joy, she rekindles her love for skating and maybe the king.

Featuring

Merritt Paterson (Katie), Andrew Cooper (widowed King Alexander), Brittany Bristow (Jessica, a figure skater and Katie’s best friend), Nicholas Banks (Alex’s right-hand man and best friend), India Fowler (Princess Christina, Alex’s daughter).

Meet-Cute

Katie gets lost at a Christmas Market in San Senova. King Alex is there for a speech. He’s getting ready backstage when Katie comes around the corner and smacks into him. She confesses she didn’t see anyone hiding there. He replies that he wasn’t hiding but wishes it were possible to hide from Christmas. (He didn’t receive the nickname Grinch King for nothing.)

Bonus: Second Meet-Cute

This one actually takes place at the palace. Katie and Jessica are there on a tour. Katie’s looking for the bathroom and stumbles into Alex’s office. She says he’s pretty lucky to work at the palace for the king. He doesn’t correct her assumptions even when she says the palace could use more Christmas decorations.

Reveal Moment

Katie and Jessica have been summoned to the palace. Unbeknownst to them, the king is going to ask them to plan an ice-skating pageant about the founding of San Senova in only fourteen days. The door opens and “It’s you!” Katie realizes that the mystery guy doesn’t just work for the king, he is the king (and father of Christina, who happens to be the brains behind the idea to hold the pageant.

My Thoughts

I’ve watched this one several times. The ice-skating aspect was a fun twist on the “meet the royal” plotline. I enjoyed the relationships between all the characters, especially the side plot romance of Jessica and Nicholas (so cute). All the cliché Christmas events are included—getting a tree, decorating cookies, caroling, midnight cocoa (which Katie says is practically a salad because chocolate comes from a plant), as well as the “I’m a commoner, we have nothing in common” speech. But King Alex assures her that there is nothing common about her. She was, after all, the prom queen. There are several scenes, especially toward the end, that make me question HOW?? and WHY?? But, nonetheless, this is a fun movie. 

A Favorite Scene

There are several scenes that make me smile. But there’s one scene between Katie and Princess Christina that sent me on a pondering quest.  

 SCENE: Katie and Princess Christina are chatting. Katie is trying to convince her to try out for the ice-skating pageant. They need an ice-skating princess and Christina is an actual ice-skating princess. Christina is not too sure—what if she can’t do it? The two of them end up talking about Cinderella.

KATIE: No one’s perfect. Cinderella definitely wasn’t perfect. She was always running late and losing things. Like the glass slipper. One thing I’ll never understand, if the glass slipper fit perfectly, why did it fall off?

**My thoughts: It magically fell off so the prince would find it. What are your thoughts on this?**

KATIE continues: Cinderella was a terrible figure skater. How could she not be, her coach was a pumpkin.

I watched Christmas at the Palace on the Hallmark Channel (then ended up buying it). I was not required to write a review, and this does not influence my review, positive or otherwise. All opinions expressed are mine alone.