Female Friday
Everyday is Christmas is one of the more recent adaptations of A Christmas Carol with a female lead. It features pop singer Toni Braxton who also serves as an executive producer. Originally presented as one of the standard Christmas offerings in 2018 by the Lifetime cable channel, it is now available on streaming services. It is both the first time I’ve watched this adaptation and its first time on the annual blog. This isn’t a long response post, but there are some minor spoilers.
Our “Scrooge” is Alexis Taylor (Braxton), a money managing businesswoman running her own very lucrative company that is “one of the top financial firms in the country.” She doesn’t deny herself the best, she has regular boyfriends, and her business is booming. However, she dislikes Christmas and is not shy about vocalizing that it’s a waste of time. She says often “I don’t do Christmas.” Despite her employees’ hard work making the company 12% increase in profit at the end of the year, Alexis is upset it’s not the 20% percent goal she had set. Therefore, she announces on Christmas Eve that everyone must come in and work the next day or they lose their jobs. She also decides to not give anyone their bonuses. She breaks up with her current boyfriend and we learn this is an annual event. Every year at Christmas, she breaks up with whomever her current boyfriend is.
We see that what we have in Alexis is not a grouchy old miser who thrives at making other miserable, nor it that how she obtains her wealth. She’s a woman that puts making money first and has a strong aversion to Christmas. What also starts to show is she is someone that keeps away from emotional attachments with others.
When Alexis is back home alone in her upscale apartment, the ghostly visitations begin. In this adaptation, there is no dead business partner or friend. Alexis’ visitor is the ghost of her mother. When her mother appears, Alexis is told she is in trouble. Her mother is there to help. Alexis’ parents have been dead for twenty years and are upset at how she is alone and without love, especially at Christmas. With their guidance, it is hoped to be change.
Her mother serves as Marley and all 3 Christmas ghosts rolled into one. Alexis begins to realize what’s happening when they first visit the past. Alexis says to her mother, “Your’re ‘Christmas Carol-ing me! Seriously?!”
The theme of this adaption isn’t so much the evils of the stingy love of money or personal spiritual redemption, but losing and regaining the ability to love. Alexis has rejected romantic closeness and is on the verge of a lifetime of loneliness. Her mother (and later father) is not a tormented spirit to warn her against a similar fate. Nor are they mere doppelgangers as sometimes done in other adaptations. They are her actual parents visiting out of love. In her past, present, and future journey, Alexis is reminded of events in her life that changed her, how it has affected others in the present, and what her life and legacy will be in the future. This of course mostly involves parental and romantic relationships, or lack thereof, around Christmas.
This adaption takes its own liberties without producing something that is unwatchable. But it is still for a niche audience (Lifetime or Hallmark). Toni Braxton give a decent depiction in the role. Her performance is played straight and does not fall back on her vocal talents finding an excuse to sing. This is not my yearly cup of tea but an occasional viewing of this is better than others.