My Adventures With Santa (2019)

My Adventures in Bachelorhood
My Adventures With Santa (2019)

I’m writing this on April 9th. I watched this dreck on April 8th. Why? I’ll tell you why.

Because in 2021 the tidal wave of Christmas movies shot in Connecticut became too big for me to ignore. Too many of them were shot at places I’m familiar with and another list was added to another list here on CTMQ. Then, as is often the case, that list quickly grew to be way larger than I’d ever imagined or dreamed it would be – even in my worst nightmares.

As a result, not only have readers made me aware of any of these movies I’ve overlooked, but my brain now has a chip implanted that has somehow made me acutely aware of any Christmas movie shot – or supposedly shot – in Connecticut.

So there I was, reading something about I don’t remember when I read that there was a movie called “My Adventures with Santa” that was shot largely in Meriden. A quick scan showed me it was available at the library and a few days later, it was in my DVD player.

Oh. And my wife and son were on a birthday trip for him during Spring vacation so I had the TV on a Friday night all to myself for once. What to do, what to do… Adult fare like any other 49 year old guy? Gross-out comedy? Hockey? Literally anything in the world?

I chose to watch “My Adventures with Santa”, starring Denise Richards and Patrick Muldoon.

And it is a terrible, terrible movie. Like, unwatchable. These Christmas movies are mostly all objectively bad of course, so when I say one is awful in every way, believe me, it should be fired into the Sun and forgotten forever. I have no idea how accurate IMDB is with this sort of thing, but according to that site the estimated budget was $3,000,000 and the worldwide gross was $18,879. And my West Hartford library is responsible for $10 bucks of that. Shame on them.

Barbara Eden plays Mrs. Claus and I believe that everyone is entitled to whatever plastic surgery they feel they need, but it must be said that when they strap this movie on the rocket to the Sun, her surgeon should go along for that ride.

(Denise Richards looks a bit funky too.)

My Adventures with Santa is a heartfelt, fun-filled adventure that brings the magic of the holiday spirit to the whole family. Christmas in the Nolan household isn’t what it used to be. Instead of a joyous family gathering, they are spending this holiday apart. On a last minute shopping trip with Dad, the family enters an enchanted store only to discover a dazzling snow globe with magical powers. Suddenly the Nolan family is transported through the globe to the North Pole where they are asked to help Santa save Christmas! As they come together to support Santa and the elves, their family love grows stronger and the true meaning of Christmas comes alive.

A few things. This is not for the whole family. Anyone over 8 will hate it. The special effects are the opposite of special. They were not going to spend Christmas apart; mom just had to work late in the weeks leading up to Christmas. The kids were ice skating when they went into the enchanted store with the magic snow globe; no one was shopping at all. This is the official blurb and it isn’t correct. That’s the level of storytelling here. Plot holes, continuity errors, abject stupidity…

And the acting is awful too. There are scenes where I feel like the director knew the acting and pacing were bad, but he was like, “Eh, whatever. Keep going.” I need to again mention how bad the effects were. Honestly, do you remember how it looked when Barney would appear before the kids on the playground or whatever? Some sparkles and a jump cut? That’s better than what is in this movie.

Moving along… the kids are bummed their parents are fighting and growing apart so the boy kid – who looks to be about 11 or 12 and a) still 100% believes in Santa and b) draws and writes like 5 year old – writes a Christmas wishlist to Santa only asking Santa to “save his family”. Santa, ignoring the plight of millions of impoverished, starving, sick, refugee, destitute, kids, not to mention victims of sexual and physical violence, drugs, war, etc., decides that this well-off nuclear family from a nice town in Connecticut where the biggest crisis is the “six figure job” that mom has will require some travel – THIS is the family Santa shuts down the entire Christmas operation for?

They get the snow globe, go through a dumb wormhole to the North Pole, hang out with the elves and Clauses, and engage is some nonsensical battle for the snow globe with an elf turned bad named La Befana, played by Jamie Luner who I totally had a schoolboy crush on when she was an older sister on “Just the 10 of Us.” Oh Jamie, what hath you wrought?

The bad elves belch and fart a lot for some reason. A lot. La Befana’s hideout and anti-toy factory is the Meriden Armory. I suppose that’s actually as good a place as any. But in the movie, the armory is up at the North Pole somewhere near Santa’s North Pole territory. Except they show the armory in the real-world town the family lives in several times. There is no sort of “magic” explanation for this at all; it’s just bad, bad filmmaking.

Those of us who know Meriden know what was shot there, sure, but there’s one line in the movie from the mom that puts the family squarely in Connecticut. After magically arriving at the North Pole, unsure of what’s happening, mom says, “Is this the real North Pole and not ‘North Pole Playland south of New Haven?”

Folks, we have a Connecticut movie shot in Connecticut in which the family lives in Connecticut – and drives an Outback with Connecticut plates. All is not for naught. My Friday night was well spent… in a sense.

The mom becomes controlled like a robot by La Befana and under her control (bad elves must pedal stationary bikes for her computer to work to control the mom) she gives her the magic snow globe, potentially ruining Christmas forever. There’s a scene where Santa Claus explains Christmas to the family, noting that it began in 366 AD which is pretty hilarious. So even Christians will hate this movie too.

The dad sorts out the kids and good elves get the magic snow globe back from the bad lady and her minions by playing some video game to get through the security firewall to shut off the magic forcefield around the armory and also inventing fidget spinners which brings joy to the bad lady who Santa forgives and then employs. And Christmas is saved.

And then Barbara freaking Eden tells us there will be a My Adventures with Santa 2.

But that was before the movie only made $18,879. Oof.

CTMQ Rating: 0 out of 5 thumbs up
Connecticutness: 131 out of 169 Nutmegs
Filmed in Connecticut? Yes!
Wealthy Caucasian with a Big House? Almost

Connecticut Movies
Connecticut Christmas Movies