All week I'd been waiting for this movie for two reasons. 1 - I've come to expect that network showing it, HMM, has Christmas movies that are not just romance, but some of the best Christmas movies I love because the stories are heartwarming. 2 - Erin Cahill is one of my all-time favorite actors in this genre.

Real spoilers ahead.

I'm having a hard time working through why this movie left me completely disappointed. For one thing, well into the movie I started thinking "this story can't end happily". Someone is going to lose out. Pierce is a really great guy. While he said the right things to Danielle, you know he couldn't let go of everything that easily. He was bowing out for her sake. I wish they would have made Pierce a jerk at least on some level. Then I think I could have see things exclusively from Danielle's level.

Then as the story tells it Colby has been a POW for years. You can say that memories of your family see you through those tough times, but those times aren't tough. They are brutal to the point of impossible. I can't help but think of Homeland. That POW came back deeply scarred and that has to be the norm. Colby is not the same man Danielle loved. Yet in the last few scenes he acts so nonchalant like he had only been gone a few weeks.

Even ignoring Colby's unrealistically good physical and mental health (notice how vigorous he looks), the ending is way too good to be true. It's not just sappy. It's cheesy.

This film starts out like the traditional Hallmark Christmas drama. A military widow and daughter are struggling at Christmas time with haunting memories of the lost husband/father. The widow is having a hard time taking the next step because so many events keep bringing back the memory of her husband. The circumstances of his death and his being the only body not recovered from the fatal mission has left a glimmer of hope in her but by all explanation given there is zero percent chance of his still being alive. She is struggling because she has become engaged to his wonderful best friend but her memories are ruining this relationship. She breaks off engagement suddenly and decides to take her daughter to the father daughter dance herself. While the daughter is enjoying the dance she wishes for one more Christmas with her dead husband. This is where it goes bad. From what appeared to be a dream sequence the dead husband appears at the dance in fatigues. Explains how he survived and now he is reunited with the mother and daughter. I keep waiting for the dream sequence to end and lo and behold he really is alive.

You would think the soldier actually being alive would be a good thing however it ruined the film. The way they had him return with no real warning was a shocking twist that you don't want to see in a Hallmark movie I end up feeling bad for her fiancé in the film. The real tragedy is that there are many people who have to accept the death of a loved one when a body isn't recovered and this will just increase their pain. I believe this is the only Hallmark movie I've ever watched that I wish I had not.

Even though his body was never recovered, Danielle's husband has been declared dead by the military. His jet was shot down in the middle of a large sea. Even if he survived the crash, there is no way he could have reached land. It was fully investigated by military intelligence and it was determined that there is no hope he survived. A young mother of an 8 year old, she has turned the corner of her grief, and has gotten engaged to her husbands best friend who has been an unfailing support and a second father to her daughter. Her daughter wants her to tell stories about her dead father to help her remember him. As Danielle starts to recount her history with Colby, She starts to see things (another soldier who resembles him, something he said repeated, a lost ornament found, etc.) in real life. Danielle sees this as signs that the universe is telling her to slow down with Pierce. She thinks that Colby might still be alive. She goes to the base commander, the father of a good friend, to get a better grip on the situation. He lays out all of the whys and wherefores of why he couldn't possibly survive. She is convinced, but the "signs" keep coming. She just can't shake her doubts off. This negatively impacts her relationship with Pierce and they finally break it off, breaking the wonderful wonderful Pierce's heart who is played by the wonderful Steve Lund whom we never hear from again. The night before the dance she sees breaking news that 4 POWs have been found and will soon be coming home. She goes to the base commander for more info, but he tells her that he has already checked and the POWs were all "foreigners." There is no chance. She goes to the dance, and there is her husband bathed in misty light, fit as a fiddle, looking for her there. What the What?! Is it a dream? No. It's not. Is it a psychotic break? No, the daughter sees him too. The family is reunited.

Is there any military-related entity or person that this movie didn't hurt or offend. It makes The base commander and military intelligence look like incompetent fools. Not necessarily for declaring him dead when he wasn't, although that certainly didn't help, but for the misinformation about the POWs being foreigners, killing Danielle's hopes yet again. An apparently when a POW has been recovered, they are given new camouflages and just plopped on a plane and sent back to where his family used to live. No warning or communication to the next of kin, no protocol, no medical or psychological evaluation, no support, no nothing.

For a soldier who was a POW after surviving a horrific plane crash, he looked mighty healthy. More like he'd been spending the 3 years at Club Med of Yemen.

Any military wife who has suffered the tragic loss of their husband and no body was recovered needs to stay far far away from this one.

It is insulting that Hallmark thought they could just conjure up a happy miracle out of absolutely nothing in the last 5 minutes of the movie and think their viewer's hearts would be moved. Hey Hallmark, your viewers have brains too.

And one more thing. Do not cast the wonderful Steve Lund in a movie where he does not get the girl. I venture to guess that that is not going to fly with 95% of your viewership.