Roast Chestnuts

It's the final episode of season two! Irish Times writer Patrick Freyne returns to the podcast to talk with Alan and Jeanne about Netflix's big 2018 Christmas film, The Princess Switch. Netflix ran the Hallmark formula through their magic algorithms and made a super-charged Christmas movie. Lonely, straight-laced baker Stacy travels to Belgravia to enter their big baking competition. She bumps into Duchess Margaret, the fiancée of Edward the Prince of Belgravia . They look identical....

Jeanne and Alan go guestless to talk about 2017's hotel renovation/dance recital Christmas combo Enchanted Christmas. Project manager Laura returns to her hometown to fix up The Enchanted Lodge, an abandoned hotel which used to host the big Christmas event in town. Laura's dancer ex is also back in town and he's performing at the Christmas event. Will Laura get the hotel finished in time for the concert and rekindle her old relationship and ALSO rekindle her love of dance and keep her...

Writer Valerie Loftus joins Alan and Jeanne to talk about Pride, Prejudice, and Mistletoe, a 2018 Hallmark movie starring the Queen of Christmas, Lacey Chabert. It's not really based on Pride & Prejudice at all. Instead it's a heartwarming tale of an investment expert who goes home for Christmas to help her mother organise a charity event in their huge stately home. Her old debate team nemesis is a chef now and gets brought in to help with the event. Can Lacey run the charity event, and fall...

Writer Caroline O'Donoghue joins Jeanne and Alan to talk about 2017's You Can't Fight Christmas, the heartwarming tale of Leslie Major, an interior decorator working in the Chesterton Hotel, a neighbourhood landmark whose new owner wants to take away everything special about it. Can Leslie make the new owner Edmund fall in love with her AND the Chesterton before it's too late? Very possibly. You Can't Fight Christmas stars Brely Evans and Andra Fuller, was written by Marnie Martin and...

Totally Dublin music editor Danny Wilson joins Jeanne and Alan to talk about 2017's Coming Home For Christmas, the heartwarming tale of Lizzie Richfield, a woman who loves Christmas and takes a job as house manager in a big old mansion where everybody's in need of Christmas cheer. Will Lizzie thaw out this frosty old house and make two brothers fight over her? Maybe! Coming Home For Christmas stars Danica McKellar and Neal Bledsoe, was written by Nina Weinman based on a novel by Jenny Hale,...

Bandwagons host and Love Island expert Fionnuala Jones joins Alan and Jeanne to analyse 2010's Christmas Cupid, the heartwarming tale of a heartless career woman who gets visited by the ghost of her dead client and the ghosts of boyfriends past, present, and future. Will she turn her life around AND pull off the party of the Christmas season AND reconnect with the boyfriend she left behind for her career? Only maybe because this is an ABC Family movie, not Hallmark or Lifetime so anything...

DJ Claire Beck joins Jeanne and Alan to discuss 2017’s Christmas Festival Of Ice, the heartwarming tale of an aspiring lawyer who loves to sculpt ice on the side. When her town’s ice sculpting festival loses its funding she decides to raise the money herself. Will the mysterious Christmas tree seller become something more along the way? Hell. Yes. Christmas Festival Of Ice stars Taylor Cole and Damon Runyan and was written by David Golden and was directed by Bradley Walsh. Our chosen...

With Love, Christmas is the heartwarming tale of an advertising person who gets her crush in her office Secret Santa but also has to work with him on the big account AND they're up for the same promotion. Will there be a misunderstanding that threatens her happiness before she gets her happy ending? It's entirely possible. With Love, Christmas was written by Marcy Holland and was directed by Marita Grabiak. Our chosen charity for this episode is the Homeless Period Ireland which provides...

The Mistletoe Inn is the heartwarming tale of a jilted writer who goes to a writer's retreat to see if she has what it takes and finds love, acclaim, and herself along the way. It stars Alicia Witt and David Alpay and we liked it a whole lot. The Mistletoe Inn was written by Michael Nourse based on the book by Richard Paul Evans and was directed by Alex Wright. Our chosen charity for this episode is the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. Please send some money their way this Christmas. Ellen...

We're back! Esther O'Moore Donohoe of The 80% Podcast returns to help Alan and Jeanne figure out their feelings towards the 2017 Hallmark Hall Of Fame classic The Christmas Train, the heartwarming tale of a lonely journalist who bumps into the one who got away on a Christmas Train and all the heartwarming characters that populate your typical Christmas Train. This is a star-studded made for TV Christmas movie. You've got Dermot Mulroney, Joan Cusack, Danny Glover, and Kimberly...

Welcome back to Season Two of Roast Chestnuts! We've got ten more Made-For-TV Christmas movies to dissect between now and Christmas with special guests like Esther O'Moore Donohoe, Erin McGathy, Claire Beck, and loads more. This year we're getting interactive. Grab your Roast Chestnuts Bingo Card [here](https://www.headstuff.org/roast-chestnuts/roast-chestnuts-is-back/) and spot as many Xmas tropes as you can. Our first film is The Christmas Train (2017) so get watching and we'll be back...

Journalist and podcaster Ellen Tannam joins Alan and Jeanne for the last episode of this series of Roast Chestnuts. The gang talk about 2017’s The Perfect Christmas Present, the heartwarming tale of a man who can find the perfect present for anyone and a woman who’s just moved across the country to be with a boyfriend that she’s kind of meh about. He finds himself getting too close to his latest client ( the woman we just mentioned) and everything he thought he knew begins to unravel. Will...

Happy St. Stephen’s Day! Patrick Freyne of the Irish Times joins Alan and Jeanne to talk about 2003’s Undercover Christmas, the heartwarming tale of a cocktail waitress who agrees to give evidence against her fraudster boyfriend and ends up being taken to an FBI agent’s parents’ house for Christmas to hide out. The waitress and the FBI agent have to convince his parents that they’re a couple. Will the fake couple become a real couple? Who knows. Fun fact: this is the film that inspired this...

2FM DJ Conor Behan joins Alan and Jeanne to talk about 2012’s A Bride For Christmas, the heartwarming tale of a man who makes a sociopathic bet that he can get engaged in less than four weeks and a woman who’s left three men at the altar and sworn off marriage forever. Will they get together? *shakes magic 8 ball* All Signs Point To Yes. A Bride For Christmas was written by Barbara Kymlicka, directed by Gary Yates, and stars Arielle Kebbel, Andrew W. Walker, and Kimberly Sustad. Follow Conor...

Eithne Shortall, Sunday Times chief arts writer and author of Love In Row 27, joins Alan and Jeanne to talk about 2013’s Fir Crazy. Fir Crazy is the heartwarming tale of a woman who takes over her family’s Christmas tree lot for one fateful Christmas, steals electricity from a department store, and finds love along the way. Fir Crazy was written by Elizabeth Hackett and Hilary Galanoy, directed by Craig Pryce, and stars Sarah Lancaster, Eric Johnson, and Colin Mochrie. Eithne Shortall‘s...

No Monster Club’s Bobby Aherne joins Alan and Jeanne to dissect 2005’s Recipe For A Perfect Christmas, the heartwarming tale of a food writer who gets her big break and sets her lonely mother up with a desperate chef in order to stop them both from annoying her. Will she find love along the way? Will there be salsa dancing? Will a man get fired for sleazy behaviour in the first five minutes in a way that we’re only learning to do now in 2017? Recipe For A Perfect Christmas was written by...

Writer and co-founder of GAFFInteriors.ie Caroline Foran joins Jeanne and Alan to watch Christmas With Holly (2012), the heartwarming story of a man who moves in with his brothers in a last-ditch attempt to get his deceased sister’s traumatised daughter to speak again. It’s also the heartwarming story of a jilted bride who opens a toy shop on an island in order to start over. Will they find love? With each other? Even though one of them has a long-term girlfriend? We’ll see. Christmas With...

Writer Emer McLysaght joins Jeanne and Alan to watch A Heavenly Christmas (2016), the heartwarming story of a woman who dies and goes to heaven but gets sent back to Earth to make a little girl’s wish come true and falls in love along the way. A Heavenly Christmas was written by Gregg McBride, directed by Paul Shapiro and stars Kristin Davis, Eric McCormack, and Shirley MacLaine. Near the end, Alan says that Albert Brooks starred in a 70s movie called Heaven Can Wait. It’s actually a 1991...

Writer Roisin Kiberd joins Jeanne and Alan to watch A Wish For Christmas (2016), the heartwarming story of a woman who gets a wish granted by SANTA CLAUS and has 48 hours to use the wish to change her life for the better and maybe fall in love and help others along the way too. We talk about the film, Vancouver, serial killers, actors pretending to work in offices, sigils, The Secret, and more serial killers. A Wish For Christmas was written by Helen Frost & Don McLeod, directed by Christie...

Esther O’Moore Donohoe of The 80% podcast joins Jeanne and Alan to watch I’ll Be Home For Christmas (2016), the heartwarming story of a single mother trying to accommodate her cranky ex-cop father’s behaviour even though she’s very busy with AN IMPORTANT CASE. Along the way, the Roast Chestnuts gang find out what honey pears are, decide that Sharon Horgan’s Divorce was underrated, and write a very excellent sequel to I’ll Be Home For Christmas. I’ll Be Home For Christmas was written by Robin...