#santa bootcamp

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Emily Kinney Santa Bootcamp coming to Lifetime TV 11/19

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emmykinney: My cozy #santabootcamp press outfit look today ✨🎄 Went to Savannah for a wedding this weekend and found this sweater dress ✨

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Emily Kinney in her new Lifetime movie Santa Bootcamp picture via melissajoanhart Instagram

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Lifetime TV on Instagram: "Are you a 🎅 or are you a 🤶? #SantaBootcamp"

Lifetime TV shared a post on Instagram: "Are you a 🎅 or are you a 🤶? #SantaBootcamp". Follow their account to see 6588 posts.

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Emily Kinney’s new Lifetime movie Santa Bootcamp

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HIOH Reviews 2025: #20

Santa Bootcamp

Synopsis: Hired by shopping mall magnate Ed Mancini to host a Christmas gala for his biggest investors, Emily heads to Santa Bootcamp - to find the perfect Santa and the inspiration she'll need to make the evening a success.

Notes: This movie was just frustrating for me. It has that vibe of a movie that needs to punish its female lead because she’s not festive enough, and I really don’t know if it has any awareness of how much its treatment of her reads like cult programming.

Female Lead: Emily

Male Lead: Aiden

This Movie Contains: Punishing The City Girl; He’s So Handsome; Romcom Trickster God

Peaks

Emily’s mother is deaf (and played by a deaf actress) and they spend a chunk of the movie communicating in sign. I feel like the majority of disability representation you find in these movies is with precocious and/or heartwarming children, so it was nice to see an adult in this role.

Pitfalls

I’m pretty sure the eponymous Santa Bootcamp is. A cult. Flat out. The two leads are more or less bullied into joining by its charismatic leader. Training in Santa Bootcamp includes marching and running in uniform. Trainees are essentially barred from outside contact while at Santa Bootcamp, and may have their phone taken away if caught using them. Part of the regular lesson plan is coaching Santa trainees in how to answer, rationalize, or deflect anything that puts the Santa way of living under fire.

Emily’s indoctrination into the cult of Santa gets its own bullet point, because it’s particularly egregious. She only shows up there because she needs a Santa performer recommendation, but she is immediately bullied into participating in the training - including the above mentioned marching, uniforms, and lack of outside communication. The Mrs. Claus cult leader continuously talks down to her, making this woman beg for any scrap of approval she can get, while constantly plotting behind her back about how special she is and how she has great plans for her. Girl, run. Girl, run.

Emily’s treatment, coupled with how Mrs. Cult Leader is constantly talking about how handsome Aiden is while also dragging him into the training, also gives me the vibe that she’s just trying to remake these two in her and her own husband’s (younger and hotter) images and this is just some wildly nonconsensual kink roleplay she’s forcing everyone to play out for her own entertainment.

At the end of the movie, Mr. and Mrs. Cult leader get into their corvette and fly off into the sky. I think this is meant to imply that they are the actual Santa and Mrs. Claus, but it does nothing to beat the cult implications. A cult doesn’t stop being a cult just because it’s run by Mrs. Claus.

Emily’s family company is called Strauss and Strauss. There is a logo in their lobby that is clearly three S’s linked together. Where does the third S come from?

Aiden is so incredibly wishy washy about what he wants. He’s a chef. He wants to work at a restaurant. And not just a restaurant, but a Michelin star restaurant. He was working at a restaurant that could’ve been a stepping stone to this career, but he didn’t like it because it didn’t have enough heart. He gets offered a job at his friend’s Michelin star restaurant, but…it’s in New York. And his cult-appointed mate is here in LA. And anyway, he doesn’t truck with all that molecular gastronomy and all that. He wants to be a home cook! But with his own restaurant. Which he gets.

[thefemininecritique]

Stocking Stuffers 8.8: Santa Bootcamp (2022) with Kevin Maher

It's a very EGOT Christmas when Rita Moreno shows up! Author/writer/comedian/andthensome Kevin Maher hops in Emily's golf cart to drive through Lifetime's Santa Bootcamp, a film with some charm but lots more terrible empty coffee up acting. Be sure to check out Kevin's new book Santa Doesn't Need Your Help wherever you find your reading materials, follow Kevin @KevinGeeksOut, and head to https://kevingeeksout.com for any of the MANY wonderful shows that might be coming to a city near you soon (including one in Beacon featuring Emily!)

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emmykinney: Mark your calendars!! See this lil elf in Santa Bootcamp Nov. 19th 8/7PM central on @itsawonderfullifetime 🎅🏻🥾⛺️✨🎄