Coyote Creek Christmas debuted Oct. 30, 2021, on the Hallmark Channel as part of its Countdown to Christmas series.
IMDB Rating: 5.7 (as of Nov. 23, 2021)
Dylan is a stoic single dad who gave up on love when his wife bolted a few years ago and left him to raise their scene-stealing son.
Paige is a career-driven woman in line for a big promotion at her event-planning business, but only if she can come up with one more killer project to add to her portfolio. With everything she’s ever worked for hanging in the balance, she shoves all that to the side and bolts to her parents’ small-town inn somewhere in the Rocky Mountains to spend a week helping them plan their annual Christmas festivities.
Unbeknownst to Paige, her parents have decided to sell the inn they’ve run for forty years, even though it’s doing better every year. They want to go out on top and see the world before kicking the bucket.
Dylan and his brother own a firm whose business model is to pay top dollar for highly successful inns, raze them and build luxury hotels in their place. A more prudent strategy would be to find struggling inns looking to sell for cheap, but this is Hallmark? Who needs a well-developed business plan?
Mom and dad make a half-hearted attempt to tell Paige their plans but fail and decide that’s enough. Besides, she’s happy with her event-planning career in Denver and has never expressed any interest in taking over the inn. They’ll just send her a postcard from Paris one day to let her know that she needn’t bother coming home for Christmas next year.
When Paige finds out from Dylan’s brother that her parents are selling the inn, she takes out her anger at Mom and Dad on poor Dylan, who stammers an apology for doing only what her parents asked him to do. The man’s been unlucky with the ladies, and now some hottie is giving him the business for no apparent reason. Poor Dylan can’t catch a break.
When word gets out the inn is for sale, they are inexplicably over-run by customers. Dylan comes to the rescue and orders a bunch of tents to handle the overflow crowd. If only the baby Jesus had been so lucky. And besides, who needs heat and indoor plumbing in the dead of winter in the Rocky Mountains?
Dylan convinces his brother they shouldn’t tear down the family inn but instead should expand it. After all, they’ve got people sleeping in tents in sub-zero weather, so this inn’s got something going on.
Dylan wraps up his evaluation and heads for the Grand Canyon, fulfilling a promise to his son. But the wise-beyond-his-single-digit-years tyke convinces Dad to head back to Coyote Creek and make amends with Paige. The hole in the ground can wait because Dad’s got a hole in his heart that only Paige can fill.
Paige realizes Dylan isn’t so bad and forgives him for, well, no one really knows for sure. But the point is she forgives him so they can move to the next stage of their relationship—the dry kiss. Arm in arm they lock lips and then watch a glorious fireworks display, oblivious to the terror it is causing their guests trying desperately to fall asleep inside those frigid tents on the front lawn.
Relationship update: Paige doesn’t get the promotion at work and, as usual, takes her anger out on Dylan, who realizes no woman is better than an angry woman and calls it off.
Edits by Todd 