Richard Siddoway's novel has been brought to the small screen with all the schmaltz you'd expect of an American yuletide special. It's not exactly overrun with carol singers and street Santas ringing bells outside department stores. But it is aglow with that spirit of goodwill that exists only in Christmas movies. Surprisingly, Debbie Reynolds rates this as one of her favourite vehicles and she twinkles pleasingly enough as the widow who asks her doting grandson Neil Patrick Harris (of Doogie Howser MD fame) to track down the mysterious woman mentioned in her late husband's diary. It's amiable, but decidedly middling, fare.

Returning to his home town after the death of the grandfather who raised him, slick and cynical Wall Street trader Will Martin feels decidedly out of place, and not at all in tune with the Christmas preparations being made by the local citizenry. But Will isn't really taking a sentimental journey at all: He's merely in town to modernize and streamline his family's real-estate company. While going through his grandfather's effects, Will and his grandmother come across the old man's diary--which reveals a lengthy relationship with a woman named Lillian.