KRISTIN’S CHRISTMAS PAST: Going Home Isn’t Easy

For Kristin Cartwell (Shiri Appleby from Roswell and Life Unexpected), Christmas is not a fun time of year and hasn’t been for 17 years, ever since she left home after high school graduation due to a major fall-out with her mother Barbara (Elizabeth Mitchell from Lost and Revolution).

After attending a holiday party at the New York City music company where she works, along with her lifelong best friend Jamie (Will Kemp from Van Helsing) and his current model girlfriend Sophia (Courtney Henggeler from Back in the Game), Kristin learns that her 17-year tradition with Jamie, spending Christmas Eve together, isn’t going to happen this year because he is heading back to the West Coast – with Sophia – to spend Christmas with his family.

Devastated beyond belief, Kristin pops the cork on a bottle of wine given to her by a small-time liquor store clerk (who is more than he seems) and she falls asleep on her couch with her very old cat “Bean” close by.

When she wakes up, however, she is transported back to 1996, rolling over in bed to discover she is lying beside her younger self, who goes by the name Krys (Hannah Marks from Necessary Roughness). Adult Kristin quickly convinces teenager Krys that she really is her older self, but thanks to a knock on the door from good ole mom they have to figure out a way for Kristin to get out of the house.

Once that ordeal is worked out, Kristin and Krys cook up a scenario to trick mom Barbara into believing that Kristin is actual “Kay”, an NYU recruiter in town to mentor Krys, who wants to attend school there because her current boyfriend will be going there.

Along the way “Kay” is introduced to her crazy Aunt Debby (A. J. Langer from My So Called Life), her dad Glenn (Judd Nelson from The Breakfast Club), 18-year-old Jamie (newcomer Michael-James Olsen) and Krys’s current boyfriend Maverick O’Dell (Deniz Akdeniz from the Australian movie Tomorrow When the War Began).

Truthfully, much of the movie is a bit silly and over the top; but in the end adult Kristin finally grows up and despite an imperfect past and a less-than-perfect future, she finds a way to start a new Christmas tradition.

Kristin’s Christmas Past premieres Saturday, November 23 at 8/7c on Lifetime.