20 best movies like A Veteran's Christmas (2018)

Christina Masters, the manager of McDougal’s flagship department store, is determined to land the manager position for their new Paris location. She sets out to impress Victoria, the store’s owner, by creating the best holiday display in McDougal’s history. Fresh out of inspiration despite assuring Victoria otherwise, Christina turns to a recently-fired store employee who also happens to be a talented artist and single dad to his young son. As they work side-by-side, the business relationship becomes personal and she finds herself falling in love. Will the allure of her dream be too strong or will she choose to follow her heart?

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.

Emma and chocolatier Luc compete for Belgium's Royal Chocolatier. The beauty and romance of Bruges inspire unique chocolate combinations, but will their entry win without them losing their hearts?

Kristin has just had to close her small Manhattan clothing boutique to return to her Ohio home town and live in her parents' former home. It's an adjustment for Kristin and her young daughter— especially when she runs into her former high school rival. Kristen and Emily struggle to find their new normal with the help of the hunky local music teacher.

Jackie Foster, a dynamic Assistant District Attorney and single mom, is looking forward to wrapping up her latest case and spending Christmas with Gracie, her adorable and precocious, eight-year old daughter. But when Jackie’s estranged dad, Jack , a gruff retired police officer, unexpectedly shows up at her door, they will be forced to confront old wounds.

Lisa's trip home to Evergreen for the holidays finds her shepherding an effort to save the town's beloved general store, fulfilling the wishes of a Christmas past and finding a romance full of Christmas magic.

Bakery owner Molly meets Josh, a widower who recently moved to town with his young son, but she is also charmed by a mysterious client whom she’s never met in person and she doesn’t realize that they’re the same man.

When he suddenly finds himself without his long-standing blue-collar job, Larry Crowne enrolls at his local college to start over. There, he becomes part of an eclectic community of students and develops a crush on his teacher.

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.

Lizzie, a high-end event planner, lies awake nightly while her devoted fiancé Josh rests peacefully. When a sleep-deprived incident causes her to run into Billy, a low-key bartender who is just as sleepless and frustrated as she is, they discover that they can only fall asleep while next to each other.

As Christmas approaches, Elizabeth Bennett, a New York event planner is sent to a quaint, small town to organize a holiday festival. When she arrives, she finds William Darcy, a high-profile billionaire lacking in holiday spirit, in the process of selling the charming estate she hoped to use as a venue. Elizabeth persuades the reluctant Darcy to let her hold the festival on the historical estate and, before long, the unlikely pair begins falling for each other.

Dr. Kate Lawrence, a celebrity relationship expert, plans to publicly announce her engagement to Bryan, a handsome and perfectly polished businessman. As Kate prepares to share the news, Bryan shocks her by breaking up with her and calling off the wedding. Wanting to save her from humiliation and protect her public image, Lucas Wright, Kate's childhood friend steps in and pretends to be Kate's fiancé.

A love story built on a misunderstanding. A transit worker pulls commuter Peter off the tracks after he's mugged. But while he's in a coma, his family mistakenly thinks she's Peter's fiancée, and she doesn't correct them. Things get more complicated when she falls for his brother, who's not quite sure that she's who she claims to be.

Forced to take the intercontinental trip to Los Angeles by train, and determined to chronicle his adventure, disillusioned journalist Tom Langdon finds himself westbound with a variety of characters. While all passengers on the Christmas train appear to be headed for the same destination, Tom has no idea that the rugged locomotives taking him across America will instead detour straight into his heart.

Angie works hard to run her uncle’s events business while her cousin Candace takes the credit. When Angie takes a night off to have fun at the Christmasquerade Ball, the mask and gown allow her to let loose, and she quickly catches the eye of Nicholas, a wealthy local bachelor. But then Angie has to go before revealing her identity, leaving Nicholas searching for his mystery woman in this modern take on the classic fairy tale.

Zoey Hathaway has been working towards her lifelong goal of being a pilot for years, but everything is thrown off-course when she unexpectedly inherits a reindeer farm, along with the dangerously handsome ranch hand Alec Wynn. Now buried in taking care of reindeer and all the Christmas responsibilities, Zoey thinks life has delivered her a strange and cumbersome blow, and she isn’t sure about Alec, who has his own ideas how best to run things. Alec, who has never had many people have faith in him, opens up when Zoey invests trust in him, and the two find themselves falling for each other. Could they both find happiness in the most unlikely of circumstances right before Christmas?

Emily (Faith Ford) misses her daughter Heather (Emma Lahana), who is attending college in Boston. Since her father died, Heather is sensitive to her mom’s dependence on long-standing holiday traditions. This Christmas, Heather has planned a trip to Phoenix with her boyfriend, but tells her mother she is staying on campus to study. After Emily arranges a house-swap with Charles (Tom Cavanagh), an English professor from Boston who wants Washington State’s solitude in order to finish his novel, Emily hops on a flight to Boston to surprise Heather for Christmas. Unaware of the house swap, Emily’s best friend, Faith (Gabrielle Miller) walks in on Charles at Emily’s house and in Boston, Ray, Charles’ brother (Gil Bellows) responds to a 911 call only to find Emily at Charles’ condo. Will Christmas travel calamities lead to cross-country romances? Or have there been one too many surprises already?

Advertising execs Melanie Welsh and Donovan Goodwin disagree on a cellphone Christmas commercial they’re pitching. He says his sleek design will win over the client but she knows it lacks holiday spirit.

When Marie begins receiving ornaments from her mother, a new coincidental blessing comes with each one, causing Marie to feel more excited for the holidays than she has in years. Marie’s once-lost Christmas spirit gets another boost when she meets her handsome neighbor Nate and feels a spark with him while celebrating the season.

Katie, a former professional ice skater, is hired by the king of San Senova, Alexander, to help his daughter in a Christmas ice skating performance. As Katie spends time in the castle and with the king, she and Alex begin to develop feelings for each other and ultimately fall in love. But will the tradition-loving people of San Senova allow their king to make a foreigner their queen?

A chance meeting between two strangers who share a disdain for Christmas results in The Mistletoe Promise, a pact to help them navigate their holiday complications - together. But as they spend more time with each other and experience the magic of Christmas the phony couple discovers there may be more to their contract than business.

Melody, high powered corporate workaholic for a retail conglomerate, is happy to spend the holidays jet-setting with her girlfriends. However, she's in for an unpleasant surprise when her boss sends her to her sleepy hometown to convince the reluctant townspeople to allow them to build a new discount store. Now, forced to reconnect with her family and her childhood sweetheart Carter, her task is not so simple, as all are vehemently opposed to everything Melody's company stands for. Desperate to get out of town and back to her real life, Melody takes a spill and wakes up in an alternate universe where she never left home and is married to Carter! Once determined to leave her small town life behind, Melody must make sense of her new life and decide if you truly can go home again. - Written by ABC

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.

When the opportunity to co-host a talk show with the fabulous talk show diva Veronika presents itself two weeks before Christmas, Emily thinks this is her big break. To her surprise, she discovers she has stiff competition with Charlie, the local TV anchor who is her near equal on another station. With such interest and support for both reporters, a contest is created: for the two weeks leading up to Christmas, who can cover the best and most meaningful Christmas stories on the local news?

A doctor returns home for Christmas to find that her father has decided to retire from his own practice. After reuniting with her high school sweetheart, she wonders if she should stay and take over her father's practice.

The lives of several couples and singles in New York intertwine over the course of New Year's Eve.

Adventurous flight attendant Sydney’s plans for a tropical Christmas get delayed when she helps an unaccompanied minor get home to Chicago to her dad Jonathan, a handsome widower and investigative reporter. Faced with a shortage of out-going flights, Sydney is marooned for several days in the Windy City – once her home as a small girl — and tags along with Jonathan, his daughter, and their exuberantly festive family until she can find a connecting flight. Jonathan makes her a deal: he helps her chase down the story of how her late parents met, and she helps him to write the perfect Christmas story and keep his job, and along the way, sparks form between them.

Emma Corrigan, a girl with a few secrets on a turbulent plane ride, thinks she’s about to die, Emma spills them all to the handsome stranger sitting next to her. At least, she thought he was a stranger. But then, her company’s young and elusive CEO, arrives at the office. It’s him. And he knows every single humiliating detail about Emma.

Single mother Grace loves Christmas but her new partner John just can't abide the occasion. As the festive season approaches, it begins to drive the two of them apart so Grace decides to get to the bottom of his disaffection.

No man is perfect enough for Sarah Groves, except perhaps the impressive snowmen she sculpts annually with her childhood pal, Nick. In mid-December, her snowman disappears, and in his place, materializes Cole, who seems too perfect for Sarah to be true.

A mistaken delivery in Mumbai's famously efficient lunchbox delivery system (Mumbai's Dabbawallahs) connects a young housewife to a stranger in the dusk of his life. They build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunchbox. Gradually, this fantasy threatens to overwhelm their reality.

When her husband abruptly ends their marriage, empty nester Kate embarks on a solo second honeymoon in Africa, finding purpose and potential romance.

Two women, one (Cameron Diaz) from America and one (Kate Winslet) from Britain, swap homes at Christmastime after bad breakups with their boyfriends. Each woman finds romance with a local man (Jude Law, Jack Black) but realizes that the imminent return home may end the relationship.

When Miranda Chester sets off to find information on her biological father two Christmases ago, she never imagined her investigation would lead her to both the love of her life, Ian McAndrick, and the family she had always longed for, including Margaret Whitcomb and half-brother Peter Whitcomb. After her romantic engagement last Christmas, Miranda prepares for a Christmas wedding surrounded by this new family. While Miranda finalizes the details of her big day, Margaret forges a surprising romance with a friend from the past. Miranda’s wedding plans are quickly complicated when a mysterious visitor who claims to have ties to her late parents reaches out to her just days before her wedding. As Miranda’s wedding approaches, she must decide if she wants to spend one of the most momentous days of her life with this new family connection, and must carefully navigate the first steps into the next chapter of her life with Ian.

Laurel, a Chicago-based business executive, travels to Memphis to secure one of the city's oldest family-owned banks. While in Memphis, Laurel reunites with old flame Clay, a local music promoter with loftier aspirations. Though Laurel tries to keep her eye on the prize of the business acquisition, Clay is very persuasive reminding her of the days when they were a performing duo on the brink of stardom. Now Laurel's focus turns to the home of the Blues and dreams of making music again.

A successful businesswoman, Mackenzie, inherits her beloved aunt's inn, and chooses to restore the hotel to its original grandeur only to sell it right before Christmas. Unbeknownst to Mackenzie, she receives some unexpected help from a team of elves headed by the cheerful Clementine, who helps Mackenzie rediscover the true meaning of Christmas.

As her new romance blossoms, a single mother, Olivia, is dismayed when her boyfriend, Scott, a military sergeant, is deployed right before Christmas. Determined to not let it ruin the holidays for her and her children they decide to give back to the struggling military families on his base and, as their efforts go viral, they are rewarded in ways they never imagined.

Charles Whitley travels from 1903 to 2020 where he meets Megan Turner, a tour guide at his historic mansion, and experiences a 21st Century Christmas.

A young woman's plans to propose to her girlfriend while at her family's annual holiday party are upended when she discovers her partner hasn't yet come out to her conservative parents.

When Johnny is released from prison following a forgery charge, he quickly lands a job as a short-order cook at a New York diner. Following a brief fling with waitress Cora, Frankie develops an attraction for Cora's friend and fellow waitress Frankie. While Frankie resists Johnny's charms initially, she eventually relents when her best friend, Tim, persuades her to give Johnny a chance.

When a winter storm hits Cleveland and grounds flights, the nearby hotels quickly fill up with stranded travelers. Nina, a pilot, reluctantly agrees to let her arrogant but charming fellow pilot, Brady, stay at her nearby parents' home. But when they discover her family is hosting a tree trimming party that night and that her ex will be there, Brady pretends to be her boyfriend to help her out.

Ellie Hartman is an aspiring crafter working in her small town’s bakery making famous Christmas Kringles. When the new, big-city CEO Nick Carlingson visits the bakery, he arrives filled with modernization ideas destined to lay off many employees.

Lucy Hill is an ambitious up-and-coming executive living in Miami. She loves her shoes, she loves her cars and she loves climbing the corporate ladder. When she is offered a temporary assignment – in the middle of nowhere – to restructure a manufacturing plant, she jumps at the opportunity, knowing that a big promotion is close at hand. What begins as a straight-forward assignment becomes a life-changing experience as Lucy discovers greater meaning in her life and, most unexpectedly, the man of her dreams.

Rose Morgan, who still lives with her mother, is a professor of Romantic Literature who desperately longs for passion in her life. Gregory Larkin, a mathematics professor, has been burned by passionate relationships and longs for a sexless union based on friendship and respect.

Danny Muldoon, a Chicago policeman, still lives with his overbearing mother Rose. He meets and falls in love with Theresa Luna , whose father owns the local funeral parlour. Naturally, his mother objects to the relationship, and Danny and Theresa must either overcome her objections or give up the romance.

Duncan Mayor decides the perfect Christmas present for his terminally ill wife, Suzy, is a ride on a real Ferris wheel, set up in their very own back yard. As a young man, it was the perfect place for a wedding proposal. Now, years later, in order to relive the experience with his wife, Duncan will go to any length to make their fantasy become a reality.

After Avery’s storybook Christmas wedding is canceled unexpectedly, dance instructor Roman helps her rebuild her dreams.

When a reporter encounters the eldest son of a famous political family at a mountain retreat, she winds up pretending to be his girlfriend over Christmas so he can save face with his family. Should she secretly expose newsworthy scoops about the famous family in order to save her job, or trust that she's falling in love for real? Stars Patricia Richardson and Katrina Law.

When Zoe tires of looking for Mr. Right, she decides to have a baby on her own. But on the day she's artificially inseminated, she meets Stan, who seems to be just who she's been searching for all her life. Now, Zoe has to figure out how to make her two life's dreams fit with each other.

After thirty years of marriage, a middle-aged couple attends an intense, week-long counseling session to work on their relationship.