'The Santa Class' Hallmark Channel Review: Stream It Or Skip It?

To say that Hallmark’s The Santa Class is about a woman who runs a school that trains aspiring mall Santas doesn’t nearly do it justice. The film is a solid holiday comedy with several threads woven in: Kate North (Kimberley Sustad) has inherited a struggling Santa school, her family’s business, of course, and has to train this year’s incoming class of seemingly hopeless students. Working alongside her former rival (Benjamin Ayres) who begs her for a job after he’s laid of from the competing! Santa! school! nearby!, not only to they train this new class of Santas, but they take in a man with amnesia dressed as St. Nick who turns out to be the real deal. As I said, this is a comedy, and it absolutely delivers by leaning into it’s completely ridiculous premise with gusto.

THE SANTA CLASS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Men dressed as Santa Claus cut ribbons and wrap presents. A woman gives a tour, passes by these men and explains, “It’s a school. For Santas.”

The Gist: This Santa school is called North Star Training Academy for Santas and it’s run by Kate North (Kimberley Sustad). Her father Richard North started this school when he saw a void in the world for such a business and, well, he filled it. Kate’s been putting her own dreams aside to run the business, and after more than a decade, it’s struggling to stay afloat and she’s hard-pressed to find a reason to stick with it so she’s a little grumpy. You will never guess who makes Kate especially grumpy at this time of year though. Give up? It’s Dan (Benjamin Ayres), a smarmy but dapper Santa trainer (!) at the rival Santa school nearby. Yes, North Star has competition and it’s name is The Saint Nicholas School. Oh, and also, Kate and Dan are more than just professional rivals, they also went on a date once and it ended poorly, so, bad blood, etc.

The Saint Nicholas School is North Star’s biggest rival, run by a former employee at North Star named Blaise (Alessandro Miro, who plays the role like a track suit gangster). This guy is solely obsessed with bottom lines and profit margins, and since Dan is his highest-paid Santa trainer, he lays him off right before the holidays. Desperate for work, Dan asks Kate for a job and because she’s short-staffed, and she reluctantly agrees. As they drive to work for their first day on the job together – he used to drive the Saint Nicholas company car (!) which was taken away after he got laid off – they find a man dressed as Santa by the side of the road. The mysterious Santa appears to be suffering from amnesia and has no idea who or where he is, so they take him to North Star to care for him until his memory returns.

The Santa, who they call Nick, joins the rest of this year’s crop of Santas-in-training at North Star. They include a woman (who is not interested in being Mrs. Claus, thank you very much), a Jewish hippie, a cool grandfather, a student of Santa folklore, a ventriloquist who only speaks through his puppet, and a very famous actor. There are loads of genuinely funny montages of each of these quirky characters approach their Santa training (voice lessons, obstacle courses, gift-wrap lessons and wardrobe fittings)! What these Santas don’t realize is that they’re not just preparing to go out into the world as mall Santas, they’re also being trained for the Christmas Cup, an annual competition between the rival Santa schools. To add just another B-story to the plot, the owner of the local mall wants to buy North Star, and Kate is considering selling. Whew!

The film has a lot going on, and by now I’m sure you’ve figured out that the questions this film poses are not if Dan and Kate will fall in love, whether Kate sells the Santa school, how Santa will get his memory back in time for Christmas, or if the rag-tag group of Santa wannabes at North Star will win the Christmas Cup, but how it will all fit in to a two-hour movie.

Performance Worth Watching: I hesitate to spoil of of this film’s fun surprises, but one of the people who shows up to take classes at the Santa school is Hallmark mainstay Paul Campbell… as himself! When one of the fellow Santa students asks who he is, he responds very seriously, “Paul Campbell. I’m an actor,” and, Reader, I’m not sure I’ve been this surprised by a celebrity’s appearance in a film since Bob Odenkirk showed up as Mr. March in Little Women, or Matt Damon appeared in EuroTrip. It was a damn delight. Campbell proceeds to drop hilarious nuggets about his career throughout the film, including a funny reference to being a “wise man” and taking a phone call where he learns he’s lost out on a role to Hallmark rival Andrew Walker.

Our Take: I wish I could convey just how silly and wonderful this movie is, but explaining some of the more ridiculous aspects of the plot just can’t compare to watching them play out. Everyone in the cast is in on just how insane the premise of the film is. Big props to Paul Campbell for playing around with his leading man persona, but Ayres and Sustad also deserve a lot of credit. The actors, who usually are saddled with more dramatic roles, really take some big, goofy swings here and they pay off. Their chemistry is great, but hopefully they get even more opportunities to go weird and wacky in the future because they’ve proven themselves as talented comedic actors.

The Santa Class is a movie that’s got so many layers to it that it’s less about the romance between Dan and Kate and relies more heavily on the comedy that’s mined from the ensemble of characters around them. This movie is a great reminder that Hallmark movies, while typically geared toward a demographic of 18 to 34-year-old women, are actually great family movies. The camaraderie between the North Star’s underdog group of Santas, their training sessions, all of the physical humor throughout, a particularly funny scene of Dan and Kate sneaking into another company’s Christmas party and trying not to get caught are all just great, goofy fun. Sure, women of a certain age will absolutely be entertained, but this is a film geared toward kids from one to 92.

Parting Shot: After Nick, a.k.a the real Santa Claus, gets his memory back, he heads out with Mrs. Claus and the reindeer to get ready for Christmas Eve. Kate, Dan, and the rest of their gang celebrate the holiday with a party at her house. The doorbell rings, and when Kate goes to get it, no one is there, but she opens a note left for her from Santa which reads, “You ever need any help at the academy, don’t be afraid to call,” attached to a box with a reindeer whistle inside.

Memorable Dialogue: As one of the Santa school’s challenges, all of the aspiring Santas are given a pop quiz where they have to make a list of as many Christmas movies as they can. Paul Campbell responds, “I’ve starred in like 35 of these!”

Our Call: STREAM IT! I can’t stress enough what a fun and genuinely funny movie The Santa Class. Next time your family can’t decide on a holiday movie, add this to your queue.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.