We need more shows depicting life in the rural areas, depicting prayer, family, and love. Ed Asner does a wonderful job as a Dad who wants his daughter to be happy with someone that respects her wishes. Great scenery, good story, and good family show. The bond between soldiers may be overstated, but we should all respect our troops, whether we believe our leadership is doing the right thing overseas, or not. The show also demonstrates how all the individuals respect each other, and how hard work can build a good life. Love begins with respect, and dies without it. To me, that is what this story is all about.

I have been monitoring this website for a couple of years now and have enjoyed reading the comments, but have never had the urge to leave a comment...until now. I was totally unfamiliar with Alice Evans, but was so taken by her performance, and by the story, that I had to comment. I loved the way she portrayed her character, interacted with John Newton, and solved the dilemma she faced. Ed Asner and John Newton had great performances as well, but Alice was the one who kept me captivated. My wife was watching the show and I passed through the room when the show was about half over. I watched for several minutes and, although I had missed the first hour, still got into the story quickly. I liked what I saw so much that I immediately sat down and watched the repeat encore in its entirety. Some may think the story predictable and maybe a bit syrupy, but I loved the wholesome way the characters were portrayed...especially how Alice portrayed Faith. I highly recommend this family oriented romantic story.

Although it has every cliché you've ever seen in holiday movies, this movie does a better job of it than most. Usually, the leading lady's boyfriend is a terrible person, which destroys the happy mood and makes the woman look like a fool. The boyfriend in this one is nice and clearly has strong feelings for his girlfriend, but they have nothing in common, he expects too much from her, and he makes big decisions without consulting her because he thinks big surprises are romantic (romance movies lead people to wrongly believe it is romantic). The new love interest is normally a funny, charming guy who is too shy to say how he feels. The one in this movie is a military man, so he knows life is short and always says what is on his mind. He's pretty serious, but he's helpful to everyone he meets and is a hard worker. He doesn't fall in love with the leading lady because of her beauty; he is touched that she writes holiday greeting cards to soldiers. Ordinarily, the family in holiday movies have some weird holiday-related family business and live in a creepily happy fake town. This movie takes place in Nevada City, CA and was filmed on location. The family has a logging business, so they do sell holiday trees (among other things like sawdust), but in a small town in the mountains this seems like a logical career. I also liked that there is a music score the whole time.