Review of Hearts of Christmas

I watched this movie twice and would watch it again. It had a wonderful romance, an interesting plot, and a strong cast. This movie WILL develop a much greater following as it continues to be shown! I especially enjoyed the focus on a hospital, with a dedicated group of nurses working in a NeoNatal Intensive Care Unit. Their work--not only with the tiny babies but also with their families--struck a chord with me because I had a premature baby boy who spent almost three months in such a unit in Providence, Rhode Island at Women's and Infants hospital. The conflict in the story centers around the efforts to control costs by bringing in an outsider, who looks at numbers and cuts staff. An older supervising nurse is one of the casualties and must take early retirement: her staff is frustrated and notes how many lives she has impacted. Every year, many of her "Angel babies" send her Christmas cards. One young nurse decides to use their annual party to honor this woman. The story also focuses on one young family whose baby needs surgery. Far from being predictable, there are several plot twists and emotional scenes that I found especially moving. With so many movies over the holidays, this one stood out to me and I made it a point to see it again. It also made me think of a very special friend, Beth, who is a nurse practitioner in the Kansas City area; she got me through my ordeal so many years ago with a number of phone calls offering the same blend of factual information, hope, and compassion that I saw the nurses in this movie offer to families. It seemed very authentic to me.