Best movies like Christmas by the Book

Madea dispenses her unique form of holiday spirit on rural town when she's coaxed into helping a friend pay her daughter a surprise visit in the country for Christmas.

The family is decorating their tree when Daddy notices the star his father made is missing. When Billy asks Mommy why this made Daddy sad, she tells him it's because the star was made by his father, their Granddad, who is in Heaven. Jeffy then has a vivid dream about Santa, and asks him in the dream to bring Granddad home from Heaven for Christmas to make Daddy happy again. When Billy learns that Jeffy thinks this really will happen, he is afraid that Jeffy's Christmas will be ruined, since Santa can't do that. Mommy tries to explain why it's not possible to Jeffy after Dolly tells her what Jeffy thinks, but he gets upset and doesn't want to hear it. That night, he gets a visit from Santa, and Granddad.

Josie Jennings a celebrated, romantic, 35-year old chef in the city heads home to spend the holidays at the quaint, magical bed and breakfast where she grew up, and where her mother Shannon has just opened a new restaurant. Famous food critic Tanner Rhodes, who has given Josie harsh reviews in the past, comes to town to review the new restaurant and Josie’s Christmas Cuisine. As the holidays unfold, Josie and Tanner get to know each other better, and a romance soon begins to blossom but will Tanner find a way to right his wrongs, write a rave review for the bistro’s delicious cuisine, and win Josie’s heart by Christmas Eve?

Dumped two weeks before Christmas, actress Olivia O’Hara secretly returns to her tiny hometown to hide out, eat cookies and avoid the press. What she doesn’t expect is to be faced with the family she left behind, meeting a charming new guy Casey Rawlins, and a noisy reporter following her every move.

Sydney Ragsdale, recently divorced, decides to spend Christmas in a house she inherited with her young daughter. As Sydney begins to spend more time at the local bookstore, she meets a teacher, Mac, who also fills in for the town Santa. Mac tries to make Christmas wishes come true, and this year Sydney is at the top of his ‘nice’ list. As a new opportunity with the bookstore unfolds, Mac helps Sydney open herself up to life, love, and believing in the spirit of Christmas again.

Event planner Rachel lands her biggest job yet – Dollywood's 30th Smoky Mountain Christmas celebration, where she’s teamed with operations director Luke to plan an event as glamorous as Dolly Parton herself. Sparks fly, but it takes matchmaking by Dolly to help them find their way.

Eric Randall, an author of bachelor lifestyle books, is left in charge of his young niece and nephew for the holidays. Eric turns to his neighbor April, a lover of all things Christmas, for help.

Eve, A Christmas loving professional wish granter, takes on the task of decorating the high-end condo for a reclusive writer who is spending the holidays out of town. But when the handsome writer turns out to be home for the holidays after all, Eve will have to pull out all her tricks to make him fall in love with Christmas all over again – and maybe find romance along the way.

A cynical youth whose mother is about to lose her job right before the holidays is visited by a magical Christmas spirit.

Pooh is so busy gathering up his friends' wish lists for Santa that he forgets to include his own. After retrieving the list and adding his own desires, he realizes he's late getting it where it needs to go. Off he goes to the North Pole on Christmas Eve, with pals Eeyore, Tigger, Piglet, Rabbit, and Christopher Robin missing him

Talia and her childhood best friend Anderson unexpectedly reunite in a curiously familiar looking town full of Christmas spirit that restores its visitors when they need it most.

Natalie Morgan is an author and host of a popular podcast, Holiday Love, which shares true stories of holiday romance with its listeners. While to the outside world and her listeners everywhere see Natalie is an expert on romance, she's never truly experienced a romance of her own. As Natalie prepares to embark on a promotional tour for her new book, she stops back home to spend Christmas with her family and to celebrate her parent's 50th anniversary where she unexpectedly begins to experience her own holiday romance as sparks ignite with local firefighter, Jack.

When Summer’s mother Vivian moves in with her and her young daughter Chloe, her orderly existence is upended. Upon arrival, Vivian sets up an heirloom, miniature Christmas village resembling their town, and tells Chloe it grants Christmas wishes. As Chloe begins setting up the figurines, real-life events seem to mimic the scenes she creates. With a little help from the magic of the Christmas village, the family will be brought closer together and just maybe, Summer will learn to open her heart to love again.

Heidi, who initially left her small town of Pleasant Valley with the dream of one day becoming a successful painter, has put her own art on hold to excel as an art gallery curator. Now, a week before the gallery’s big Christmas party, she must return home to watch her niece and nephew. She comes face to face with her high school love, Chris, now a teacher, and offers to help him find a new last-minute location for the Christmas dance.

Sarah is a children’s book author who returns to her hometown, where she reconnects with her family and Travis, her teenage crush. She soon discovers that a long-held family legend might actually be true.

Lifestyle guru and romance expert, Joanna Moret, has developed a fool-proof strategy for ending holiday loneliness and it's all detailed in her best-selling book, The Love Audit. After appearing on a morning show, she is offered the biggest opportunity of her career—to throw the MacAllen Holiday Gala—and if all goes well she'll get her own TV show. Little do her fans, or the MacAllen's, know that she is newly single and can't seem to apply her principles to her own love life. Joanna asks the morning show producer, Ted to pretend they are a couple or risk being exposed as a fraud.

Lindsay is faced with a life-altering decision as Christmas approaches: Stay in her tiny hometown and marry boyfriend Jason or accept a coveted post teaching at an Ivy League college on the other side of the country. What to do? Fortunately for Lindsay, she has some big-time help in the form of a magical messenger who is able to transport her three years into the future to see how it would all turn out.

Author Nell Phillips’ first book has become a surprise best-seller of the Christmas season. Nell’s last stop on a nationwide book tour takes her to the town of Springdale, the hometown of Emmett Turner, a young man she met over five years ago while both were junior copy editors at a New York publishing company. Nell was hurt when Emmett stood her up for a dinner date and then disappeared from New York without any explanation. As Nell is quick to admit, Emmett’s colorful, nostalgic anecdotes about Springdale inspired her to write this book that is shaping her life and especially this holiday season.

Family friends Sam and Kat spend every Christmas Eve at the Children's Table. They grow up together, sharing the highs and lows of young adulthood. And at thirty, Sam realizes that Kat is the one... but he's afraid that the past will get in the way.

Dating coach and aspiring book author Abigale Slater is tasked by her publisher Jack to prove that her dating advice really works. With that, she decides to make a man fall for her by Christmas Eve in 12 days. When she Michael Ryan, her single-minded mission takes an unexpected turn.

When food stylist Holly returns home for Christmas, she learns that the elderly owner of her favorite childhood bakery is retiring and has started a contest to give the bakery away to whoever can recreate her famous 12 Days of Christmas recipes. When a local baker also enters the contest, the two adversaries end up cooking up something special together for the holidays.

Drowning in tinsel and lights every Christmas, Michael and Caroline Anderson throw the year’s biggest party at their house. But this year, with Michael jobless and Caroline’s store struggling, that tradition may end. The Andersons decide to host a very different kind of party and, in the process, rediscover what’s most important about the holiday.

An Atlanta-based chef gets fired just weeks before Christmas and reluctantly takes a job with a pro baseball player who is a single dad of three and needs a live-in-chef to get him through the holidays with the kids.

A pair of magical shoes step into Kayla Hummel’s holiday season, allowing her to rediscover her Christmas spirit and find love too.

Bah! Humbug! Susan Stone is definitely what you'd call a modern-day scrooge. She is a young, jaded book editor who is consumed with self-doubt and has lost the passion and drive that defined her childhood persona. On the verge of losing her job and being completely on the "outs" with her family, Susan has nearly given up on happiness. Out of nowhere, a cheerful, carefree seven-year-old girl named Suzie awaits Susan back at her apartment. It turns out that little Suzie is the embodiment of Susan's inner child, she is Susan as she once was years ago. Suzie has come to help the adult Susan rediscover and recapture the love of life that she's lost.

Merry, who owns the ranch, has been unlucky in love, but that's about to change when a single father, Mark, and his two kids book the ranch for Christmas week. Adventure is on the menu, the holiday spirit is everywhere, and love is in the air.

Just before Christmas, bestselling author Rachel Kennedy returns to her hometown to host an event for her upcoming book. Though being home is difficult since losing her parents and losing touch with her brother, David, she finds strength from unexpected sources, namely her local producer, Jack and a selfless stranger, Joy. Jack and Joy help Rachel connect with the community, reunite with her brother and reevaluate her motivational message. Rachel and Jack develop an undeniable bond, but Rachel is torn between their relationship and career pressure from her manager, Stuart. As the event approaches, Joy reveals a secret from her past that has a lasting impact on Jack, and Rachel must find a message that brings her fans — and herself – lasting joy.

As Christmas approaches, Amelia Hughes, a career-focused Chicago app developer lacking in holiday spirit, returns to her small hometown of Christmas Creek to rediscover the meaning of Christmas. There, she reunites with her childhood best friend Mike and her estranged uncle Harry, whose mysterious rift with Amelia’s father divided her family during the holiday season when she was a child.

A recently divorced mother books a chalet in a beautiful Christmas village in Vermont to try and rekindle Christmas magic for her teenaged daughter who feels like her family is ruined forever. When they arrive, they find that the house has been double booked and now they must share their family holiday with a grumpy writer who hates Christmas. Together, they’ll learn that a little Christmas magic heals even the most broken heart.

Frazzled and struggling with writer’s block, novelist Samantha, along with her boyfriend, heads home to her late grandmother’s home to spend Christmas. While at home with family, her grandmother’s wise words reveal the true meaning of Christmas with Samantha at a time when she most needs encouragement.

Christmas is fast approaching and years of long workdays employed at New York’s top corporate law firm are about to pay off now that Lucy Toomey will be made partner after the New Year. However, when Alice, her older sister with special needs, unexpectedly passes away, Lucy returns back to Nilson’s Bay, Wis., to attend the funeral and handle her estate. While Lucy dreads returning to her childhood home, she also feels real sorrow that she was too busy to take her sister’s last call. Once back in Nilson’s Bay, Lucy meets Peter, her old high school sweetheart and Alice’s former attorney, who informs her of the terms of Alice’s eccentric will that states in order for Lucy to inherit the family home, she must live there for 30 days through the holidays.

Mandy, the owner of a craft and hobby store, discovers an old copy of “A Christmas Carol” among donations for a book drive. In the book is a letter to Santa from 70 years ago along with a valuable coin. Mandy sets out to find the owner of the book, letter and coin with the help of Jonah, a contractor who first came upon and donated the book. Along the way, they find clues that lead them closer to the author, and to each other, but can Mandy return everything to the book owner in time for Christmas and make her own Christmas wish come true?

Harper, a teacher and aspiring illustrator, eager for her big break, is tapped to collaborate with Caleb, a demanding children’s book author whose celebrity is waning. When he insists on her working through Christmas week in a quaint small town in Colorado, she must use the town’s holiday celebrations to help break him out of his writer’s block.

When Rebecca Miller returns home to Tennessee two weeks before Christmas to take care of her niece and nephew while their parents are away, the last thing she expected is to reconnect with her childhood best friend, Drew. As she attempts to revive the kids’ Christmas spirit and redeem their faith in Santa, she rediscovers her favorite childhood activity: 12 Days of Christmas–something she always did with Drew. As the kids’ faith in the holiday grows, Rebecca and Drew’s friendship returns, and she starts looking at Drew in a whole new light.

Wayne and Lanny, now partners, are called by Magee to meet with a secret contact – Mrs. Claus, who sends them on a new mission to retrieve a box from Santa’s secret workshop. Later they sneak into Santa’s office while he is asleep, using their high tech equipment from the previous film. Lanny’s expertise at dressing the tree enables them to enter the hidden workshop where they recover the box and escape just in time. But what is the box for?