I honestly never knew that Daniel Lissing was Australian. I watched him in When Calls The Heart, and a few other Hallmark movies using a North American accent; so when I first heard his Australian accent in this movie I thought he was faking it. I looked up his bio, and, surprise, surprise, he's from Australia. Go figure.

The thing is, I like his acting and I like the acting of the other actors in this movie. Unfortunately, there was no chemistry between his character and the very young woman who played his love interest. In fact, he's closer in age to the woman who played her mother.

The other problem was the love interest, Elizabeth (played by Jillian Murray) besides being way too young for him, she had way too much angst. She suffered from grief over the loss of her father, "at a very young age" (according to her mother), and was constantly in a state of misery. I wanted to yell at the tv, "Get over it!"

Good actors, fairly typical Hallmark movies story line; but miscasting characters with no chemistry.

P.s. Ellie Stewart who played Grace was absolutely adorable!

The actors and actresses were great. Love Daniel Lissing. The girl that played his daughter was awesome. The chemistry between the two leads were great. The actual plot was good, somewhat. The widower moving with his daughter to start new. Very believable, but what kind of job did he have that afforded him to be able to up and move and attempt a Christmas Fair in his back yard. Wouldn't that be an obvious question when getting to know someone new? " What do you do?'. The actress playing the lead was great, but her storyline was awful. Her father died when she was young, so why after so many years, was she expected to give the speech? Why was she having a harder time than her mother. Nothing about her situation warranted her behavior. That's on the writers or who ever was in charge. This could have been a 10 otherwise.

7.2 stars.

An Aussie man and his daughter move to the USA and meet a woman and her mother. The two families grow very close, the man and woman fall in love. The end.

So with the whole narrative summarized above, which is literally 99% of Christmas romance stories (minus the Aussies), I still enjoyed the film. In the case of 'Christmas Keepsake' the best part is probably the tension and chemistry between the leads. She is a hurting individual who never recovered from her father's death, which I believe was like 20 years ago. I don't know if that sort of lingering for decades sort of pain is realistic to be honest, but whatever. He has no problems with love, he's just an Australian guy trying to navigate a new life in America.