For many people, a familiar pastime in the weeks leading up to major winter holidays is gathering with family members and watching holiday movies, be they in a theater or on television. During the month of December, as has become tradition, the Falls Free Press will reprise “The 12 Films of Christmas,” focusing on new holiday movies for the year 2022—a year that can still do with plenty of peace and joy. We will review each film, whether naughty or nice, and let you know where to watch.
If given the option, where is the perfect place to spend Christmas anywhere in the world? Would it be spent with family, spent alone on a beach, or spent as archaeologist Lucy Stewart celebrates, by studying ancient texts and stones in the Highlands of Scotland? In Saving Christmas Spirit Scottish Christmas and Yule traditions are examined through the lens of an American visiting the country not as a tourist, but as a researcher viewing the locals with fresh eyes, only to admit that sometimes the magic of the season is just as believable as what we can physically see.
Saving stars Ashley Newbrough as Lucy, who chooses to spend the holiday in Scotland after learning about a newly discovered library collection which could lead to the the ruins of a shrine to the ancient goddess Beira the Queen of Winter. Lucy is hoping the discovery will save her job, which is on the chopping block. Checking in at a manor house, she meets a Christmas-loving family, made up of the manor’s Lady, Edina McAvoy, the mischievous ghost of her late husband, and her son Duncan (played by James Robinson), a struggling distiller whose geographical guidance of the Scottish hills not only leads Lucy to possible treasure in archaeology, but to love as well.
Although the basic premise of the story is not unlike a thousand other holiday romances, introducing the archaeological history of the Scottish Highlands and the Christmas traditions of the country will make audiences forget about the overused premise. Whenever the story becomes too focused on Lucy and Duncan’s relationship, problems arise for them, and other characters such as Edina’s teenage nephew, Finn. As Finn also deals with the frustration of love, his focus is divided between helping his love interest Caitrin fight patriarchal fallacy preventing her from joining the school rugby team, and meeting his new step family.
These breaks help show that even in a place where Christmas is everything, life still gets in the way, especially shown with Duncan’s B-story involving his distillery, Christmas Spirit, which may be sold if he cannot produce and sell enough whiskey.
At times, chapter breaks in the story are created by mysterious ghostly occurrences throughout the home such as broken ornaments, falling signs from guestroom doors, or changes in the Cailleach Nollich. Cailleach Nollich is a figure of the Christmas Oldwife chalked into the Yule log which will burn away as the fire grows and Yule ends, a superstition meant as a sacrifice to keep death at bay until the following year’s Yule. Each time a ghostly occurrence is observed, the film suggests the “believing isn’t seeing” idiom, relating the belief in Christmas to the belief in true love.
Overall, Saving Christmas Spirit is perfect for two major reasons, not counting the characters and plot in general: Scottish accents and discovery of history. Both separate the movie from the hundreds of other holiday films this year by making it fun for fans of Scotland and providing a small amount of holiday lore.
Saving Christmas Spirit is available to stream on AMC+.
