Bless This Mess: "The Christmas Blessing" : (ft. The Legendary CALEB HICKMAN)
This Edition of Rob Row is written by living legend and man of the people, Caleb Hickman.
Caleb Hickman is one of the best to ever do it. Currently residing as Bloomington, Indiana’s ABSOLUTE FINEST, he’s tooted his saxophone and tickled the keys in every one of your favorite bands’ favorite bands, all while auditing classes on Love and Peace at the University of Life and Good Vibes.
You can find him out on tour this March with American music band, Houndmouth
or
getting energies off with his band, Sumatics
or
if you want to hear the best thing I listened to in 2022, you can catch Caleb’s tribute to his Nana at the link below.
Without further review, please enjoy Caleb Hickman’s Rob Rowga (where you yoga to a Rob Lowe movie in the style of Rob Row) of 2005 film, The Christmas Blessing.
The Christmas Blessing is the 2nd film in the triple-threat Christmas Shoes series. A quick primer for those who don’t know about this series. “Christmas Shoes” is the seminal melodramatic Christmas song turned film about:
“The loss and subsequent return of a pair of shoes helps a young boy give his terminally ill mother a wonderful present, while at the same time showing a heartless, workaholic lawyer (Rob Lowe) the true meaning of Christmas.”
I set out my tattered yoga mat with the intention of a slower-paced, longer-hold yin-style yoga sequence which would allow me to really settle into some challenging poses while simultaneously settling into watching an even more challenging film.
My first roadblock was finding a stream of this made-for-TV film, but thankfully I found a Bulgarian subtitled rip of the complete film on YouTube. The 360p resolution matched how I envisioned this film would be broadcast in a doctor's office waiting room in 2005.
Anyway, The Christmas Blessing picks up 17 years after Christmas Shoes, and the young boy who lost his mother is now a grown doctor named Andrews played by Neil Patrick Harris.
Honestly, sick move on the producer's part getting NPH to play a doctor cause he killed it as Doogie Howser, child M.D, back in the early 90s.
The film kicks off with Andrews losing one of his patients during surgery. Wrought with grief he quits being a doctor. (Yup, he just straight up quits, takes his white doctor coat off and chucks it to the ground, and storms out.)
Cut-scene to a whirlwind of plot points in desperate need of being established.
He moves back to his New England home to work at his still grieving dad’s auto shop, while working there his grandma pushes him to volunteer as the after-school basketball coach at the school his dead mom worked at. While there he meets new-to-town teacher Meghan and is spellbound by her beauty and her heart of gold. Soon after he also meets Charlie, a rosy-cheeked, drifter kid played by ANGUS T JONES.
Special shoutout to ANGUS T. Known for his role as the ½ man in 2 ½ Men, Angus brings the goods with his sweet demeanor and laidback charm that makes you wish he was your son, brother, and/or friend.
While holding a long sphinx pose I find out Charlie moves around the country with his dad “cleaning estates.” Where’s Charlie's mom? Well, unbeknownst to him, she is also dead. Charlie’s father is an alcoholic and a terrible liar. Meant to keep his son safe from the truth of his mom’s aliveness he spouts a few zingers about what she does and why she isn’t currently with them. She’s a painter in Italy, she's a musician on tour, she’s an actor in Hollywood. Charlie, somehow not picking up on these atrocious lies, is fed one more when his dad hands him THE red Christmas shoes saying, “she’s a dancer.”
But really he found those shoes in the church clothing donation box put there by Andrew’s dad who can’t handle the pain and memory of his dead wife. Anyway, yeah, Charlie falls for it like an idiot.
You might be wondering when does Rob Lowe come into the film?
Well, as opposed to his starring role in Christmas Shoes you’ll find him in this film having only a ‘special appearance by’ next to his name on the cover. But Lowe and behold, Rob does not disappoint.
Remember when I told ya that Meghan was trying to buy a house for those in need, well you better believe Rob Lowe is the man for the job.
Despite it being 17 years later, lawyer Rob has aged with what I can only describe as a light Canadian Mist of gray hair.
Remarkable.
Add on top of that his signature smirk, you know the one. It’s the smirk you do when you’re walking past a stranger on the sidewalk and you accidentally make eye contact so you just look at them with “that smirk.” Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Rob Lowe is the master of such effortless facial expressions, and “that smirk” just gives grandmas, moms, hell, even me a warm, fuzzy feeling.
And with that warm and fuzzy feeling he promises Meghan he’ll do his best to raise the money to help close on the home before Christmas.
What a class act!!
Fast forward to some tragedies. SPOILER. Young Charlie has got a real bad case of the terminal Christmas Eve heart defect and wouldn’t ya know it out of nowhere Meghan falls ill with the equally dire Christmas Eve cirrhosis of the liver.
At this tough point in the film, I’m holding a pigeon pose. My stiff Hickman hips make it hard to ignore the emotions stuck inside myself, forcing me to surrender to the physical pain and accept what these stuck emotions bring up, while simultaneously witnessing Charlie surrender and accept his own death and with his last breath tell his dad and Andrews to give his teacher his liver and THE red Christmas shoes.
A magical moment of a young child’s life where they’re somehow not eligible for a heart transplant and instead have to sacrifice they’re own child liver and give it to a grown adult. Doesn’t really add up, but it gets the tears rolling.
While seated cross-legged watching the final minutes, how will Charlie’s legacy live on? Well, wouldn’t you know in the eleventh hour Rob Lowe is able to secure those funds and able to close on that house. Then Meghan talks about a drifter kid who touched her life, in fact, saved her life, and says that she will name the house, ‘Charlie.’
Names the house Charlie.
A house named Charlie.
House. Named. Charlie.
Yes yes, I know it’s a Memoriam, but Charlie didn’t need to die in the first place alright!
In one final stroke of made for tv-film genius, to celebrate this Christmas realty miracle, Rob Lowe’s character calls in a final favor and gets Blake Shelton to fly in from Nashville to sing at this tiny New England town’s Christmas tree lighting—playing his new, definitely not-Christmas song, “Nobody But Me,” while Meghan and Andrew hold each other. (Not to be confused with his 2019 release, “Nobody But You.”
What does that have to do with the story?
I don’t know, but all I know is they did that thing I hate in TV and films when there’s a person performing a song but the music is just the studio recording with a full band, electric guitars and all, but onscreen it’s just Blake Shelton strumming an acoustic guitar and singing into a microphone connected to nothing.
Credits roll.
Think I’m gonna take down the Christmas lights tomorrow.
The Christmas Blessing (2005)
1hr 29mins
Yin style Yoga
