“For me, the holidays are all about family.”

Synopsis: Lifestyle guru Joy Edwards – whose cookbooks feature her perfect home life and family – is horrified when a TV network decides to film Christmas dinner at her fabled, but fabricated, country home. Now, she must come up with a plan to save her book publisher and herself.

Imagine building your entire bestselling empire on books about family, and you really don’t have one. And the fact that your success has been established on a lie you’re trying to get out of culminates in you leaving your last book behind. But the caveat is a surprise television broadcast from your home on Christmas Eve. And you don’t even have a Christmas tree in the house, let alone a family—What does one do? Oh my!

This is exactly what happened to Joy Edwards (Emmanuelle Chriqui), whose publicist has gotten her into one figgy pudding mess. This author has to create a recipe that will give her television audience the illusion of the family she’s fabricated through the years in each of her bestselling books.

During one of her television segments, the host (Ayesha Curry) says, “Joy Edwards, you not only write about the perfect lifestyle, you live it. Tell us about Christmas at Goose Lake.” To which she replies, “For me, the holidays are all about family.” Her best-kept family secret—Joy went from foster home to foster home, she never had a real family, and now, in 72 hours, she has to come up with a recipe for one? What is an author to do?

Thanks to Max (Chad Michael Murray), an ex-boyfriend, posing as her driver…She got an idea to keep her goose from being cooked. Imagine — Max as her husband, her cleaning lady playing her mother, a couple of executives’ non-Christmas kids as her perfect children, and the neighborhood postman as her father. Hope this tinsel doesn’t get tangled!

But now the question is, will Joy’s Goose Lake plan succeed, or will her goose really get cooked? Like any good mystery, you’ll just have to watch the movie to the end and find out.

Joy To The World was released on November 1, 2025. It is 1hr 27min and is rated TV-G. It can be seen on Disney+ and Hulu with a subscription.

Director: Jerry Ciccoritti.
Screenwriters:  Neal H. Dobrofsky and Tippi Dobrofsky.
Stars: Emmanuelle Chriqui, Chad Michael Murray, Ayesha Curry, and Josh Reich.

We give Joy To The World

This was a very well-written script woven with all kinds of surprise gifts. It’s interesting to see how this whole idea unfolds, flows, and comes together. What a breath of fresh air. There is a truth: sometimes the best messages come from our biggest messes. And in Joy To The World, you will find that true message: A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps (Proverbs 16:9 NKJV)... If you are going to start your holiday season off with any movie, this one would be it. Good for the entire family with some very interesting life lessons.