A Cookie Cutter Christmas: Rival Teachers Learn True Value of the Holidays

One of the 12 new holiday movies on the Hallmark Channel was last night’s A Cookie Cutter Christmas, starring Erin Krakow (When Calls the Heart) and Miranda Frigon (Primeval: New World) as former childhood best friends who are now second grade school teachers and archrivals.

The women – Christy Reynolds (Krakow) and Penny Miller (Frigon) – have been competing against each other in everything: the annual holiday festival, school president, the high school track team and now as teachers. Their current competition is the newly crafted Christmas Cookie Bake-Off as part of their school’s annual holiday festival, which is judged by local celebrity chef, Chef Krueger (veteran actor Alan Thicke).

While Penny seems to thrive at everything, including baking, Christy is at a slight disadvantage: she can’t bake. However, thanks to her mother Bev (Laura Soltis from the made-for-TV movies Recipe for Love and Wedding Planner Mystery) and her friend Allison (Jill Morrison also from When Calls the Heart), she gets a crash course in baking.

But it is when she starts getting baking lessons from the “new single dad in town” James (David Haydn-Jones from the made-for-TV movie Dear Santa) – whose daughter Lily (Genae Charpentier, who has guest starred in Arrow and Signed Sealed Delivered) is not only in Christy’s class but is also getting tutoring lessons from Christy – that things start to turn around.

The ladies also begin to vie for James’s attention and their petty feud begins to take its toll with Christy slowly starting to realize that it isn’t worth it; but Penny didn’t seem to get the memo of putting their rivalry to an end. Instead, Penny steals one of James’s recipes and places it under Christy’s final entry in the bake-off competition. Needless to say, James is upset and while Christy wins the competition, she loses James before their relationship can even flourish.

In the end, though, Christy makes a big decision – no more competing. She makes amends with Penny and gives the grand prize she won from the bake-off to the Center for Hope, the charity organization run by James. And, spurred on by his daughter Lily and a confession made by Penny, James learns the truth and he and Christy end up together for Christmas.

A Cookie Cutter Christmas is the epitome of what the Hallmark Channel is all about: entertaining holiday movies that the whole family can watch and enjoy.