This humorous supernatural Christmas tale is well written with humorous dialog and situations. A young lady travels to a picturesque snowy haunted inn to prepare for it's sale. There she meets a ghost who comes to solid form 12 days a year around Christmas. There is a fairly interesting mystery told in flashbacks about how the ghost had been killed.

The cast is appealing. Jen Lilley has a doll like face - very pretty. Thomas Beaudoin looks and acts suitably like a character from about a 100 years ago.

The only thing is the happy ending is welcome but not really explained well enough.

Christmas has always been special to me and my favourite time of year. Main reasons being that it means lots of family time and reliving the nostalgia of singing and listening to carols, watching Christmas films and animations, playing festive games and opening presents. Will never tire of it and nothing will ever change that for the world.

Seing it as someone who wanted to see a different festive film other than the ones watched every year, 'The Spirit of Christmas' is never going to be among my favourites or one of the timeless festive films. It is not great, nor is it flawless. 'The Spirit of Christmas' is though a more than watchable film and avoids some, though not all, of the traps that other Christmas films have fallen into. It is a case of having appeal for some and others finding it a bit of a chore to sit through. For me despite its flaws, 'The Spirit of Christmas' is one of the better new Christmas films seen recently, but nowhere near close to ever.

As to be expected, the story is predictable and although the premise is a reasonably clever one there isn't really an original idea in sight. There are a lot of easily telegraphed scenes here. Some draggy pacing here and there too.

Quite a fair bit of the dialogue does make one cringe and like some festive films it is not without its cheesy moments, and when we say cheesy we are not talking a little sadly.

However, 'The Spirit of Christmas' is a decent looking film, the locations are particularly striking. The music provides some affectionate nostalgia and is pleasant to listen to, while the direction avoids being too routine. Didn't find myself irritated by the characters at least and wasn't bored.

Despite the predictability, 'The Spirit of Christmas' has its heart in the right place, a difficult to dislike atmosphere and has a nice message that is easily relatable and wasn't laid on too thick. There is definitely a festive spirit and there is plenty of warmth and charm here, with enough parts to warm and melt the heart. Never does it feel too juvenile or mean-spirited and the sentimentality generally doesn't become too much. The acting actually comes over very well, with two likeable leads and a supporting cast that show enthusiasm without over-doing it.

Overall, likeable and above average if nothing to be blown away by. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Depending on your level of cynicism and/or love of romantic movies, you will have a higher or even lower level of rating for this. Now the movie is not fooling anyone (and I wouldn't really call it a "great story", we've seen this before even with the Ghost "touch"/twist added) and it clearly states what it is and what it isn't to the viewer.

So if you are not into that sort of movie, don't even bother watching. And from the rating in general, mostly people who are into this stuff watched it. Even so, there are cliches abound and this never gets more "quality" than the movie of the week has. No offense movies of the week, it is just a saying. Having gone there, the movie is simple and touches the right people. Humor is ok for what it is - and yes you can guess the ending yourself ...