RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 2025. The high heat in the city these deep summer days could make watching the “Hallmark movie Jingle Bell Princess” — allegedly about a chilly Christmas in Maine, with deep snow on the ground — seem almost reasonable in the middle of July.

Add the wildfire smoke — as in “Toronto air quality drops to second-worst in world as city chokes on wildfire smoke” — and staying inside watching TV is allegedly more healthful than walking through the smoke to the local library, at the edge of the city park..

Add again that while Jingle Bell Princess (“released in 2021”) is allegedly about the US State of Maine on the Canadian border, it was shot in North Bay, Ontario (Canada), a three and three-quarter hour drive more or less due north of Toronto (and also in Sturgeon Falls, about a half-hour drive due west of North Bay).

Then add yet again that the female lead in Jingle Bell Princess is Merritt Patterson, who was born and raised in Whistler, BC in Canada, and began her career when at16 she won the “Canadian Herbal Essences’ Teen Model Search” in 2006.

And then still further again add that the male lead in Jingle Bell Princess is Trevor Donovan, who is interesting on at least two different grounds …

First, he was born in Bishop, California and raised in Mammoth Lakes some 42 miles northwest — an intriguing small urban centre (about 7200 people in 2020) “immediately to the east of Mammoth Mountain, at an elevation of 7,880 feet (2,400 m)” in the most easterly Republican regions of the Golden State.

Second, Trevor Donovan has the same initials as and otherwise resembles Troy Donahue (1936–2001), “an American film and television actor … a popular sex symbol in the 1950s and 1960s … best known for his role as Johnny Hunter in the film A Summer Place.”

Finally, all these things (and no doubt more) are what make Jingle Bell Princess if not exactly altogether worth watching, at least only a serious embarrassment if you confess your wasted time to others.

Note as well that Merritt Patterson and Trevor Donovan also star in the rom-com Twas the Text Before Christmas, shot here in Toronto (like many other movies of the past several decades) from May 15 to June 1, 2023. (These kinds of Christmas movies do not take a long time or a lot of money to make.)

Merritt Patterson has starred in at least a dozen “Hallmark Channel and Great American Family movies,” and has “won Best Supporting Actress at the Canadian International Faith & Family Film Festival.”

I have some suspicion that watchers of these and other rom-com movies often vote for Donald Trump in the USA. At least one source I’ve stumbled across alludes to “Christian actor Trevor Donovan.” And along with Trevor Donovan Wikipedia’s “notable people” from Mammoth Lakes includes “Trace Gallagher, Fox News anchor and reporter.”

On the other hand, in Canada my wife and I know at least one quite liberal community activist who seriously likes watching Christmas rom-coms in the middle of the summer! And then there’s me, myself, and I, who does not really like watching these TV movies but sometimes does it anyway!