A struggling caterer (Merritt Patterson) falls for the reluctant heir to a family fortune (Daniel Lissing) in this 2022 made-for-TV Christmas romance they should have called Nepo Baby It’s Cold Outside.

Catering Christmas follows the same template as 2016’s A December Bride (which also starred Lissing) but with catering instead of interior design, presumably set in the same universe where women are only allowed feminine jobs that allow them to meet eligible bachelors. It is also set in a tiny town that only has one event per year yet somehow has multiple competing catering businesses. But Molly still finds time between battling Big Catering and desperately seeking cinnamon (no wonder she’s struggling) to flirt with a trust fund baby rather than doing any discernible catering.

In fact Molly is largely irrelevant throughout, focusing instead on rich man Carson and his exhilarating dilemma: whether to pursue a photography career, or take over his aunt’s foundation, live in a mansion and host an annual party for 20 guests; a sacrifice the film frames as a lifetime of service, selflessness and hard work. In true Hallmark fashion, Molly shows him that family and Christmas are more important than following your dreams, which is probably for the best considering he doesn’t appear to own a real camera.

The low-stakes romance makes for low-effort viewing that flirts with the boundary between the cosy and comatose. Where A December Bride meant literally watching paint drying, this is like snowmen melting; two permasmiling figures being idle and white at each other for 85 minutes.