“Confessions of a Christmas Letter,” written by Jennifer Smith ’95 and her sister Kate Smith, premiered on the Hallmark Channel Nov. 17.
Jennifer Smith ’95 and her sister Kate Smith didn’t set out to write a Hallmark movie when they wrote “Confessions of a Christmas Letter” 20 years ago. But, on Nov. 17, the film premiered on the Hallmark Channel’s Countdown to Christmas programming event.
The film follows Settie Rose, played by “The Office” star Angela Kinsey, a quirky family matriarch who enters her town’s holiday letter-writing contest but needs help, so she hires struggling novelist Juan to craft the perfect letter. When a mix-up leads to the rumor that Juan is engaged to Settie’s daughter Lily, the whole family scrambles to keep up the charade.
“We modeled a lot of the comedy off of letters that my mom would get,” said Jennifer. “My parents would get all these Christmas letters every year, people going through what happened that year, and my mom would save them by the door in a basket. My sister and I would come home and read them and laugh because a lot of them were really funny.”
Jennifer and Kate have been trying to get the movie made for decades, but the original version was much racier than the now-Hallmark version, written with Goldie Hawn in mind for the lead. So when a producer pitched it to Hallmark, Jennifer said they were shocked but excited. This will be the pair’s second movie with Hallmark since 2003’s “Audrey’s Rain” starring Jean Smart.
“It’s a lot more comedic than the movies Hallmark normally does so that was an interesting process trying to preserve the comedy,” said Jennifer. “We enjoyed working with Hallmark and hope to be able to do more with them in the future.”
After graduating with a degree in communications from Elon University in 1995, Jennifer moved to Studio City, California, working as a production assistant on sitcoms while she started her screenwriting career with her sister. Kate now lives in New Mexico, so the two collaborate online.
“I can’t imagine writing with anyone else,” said Jennifer. “I know other writing teams that are not related and I think it’s hard. We complement each other because she’s really good with character development and I’m good with dialogue.”
While writing scripts for the last 20 years, Jennifer has also been the manager of high-risk operations at NBC Universal’s Environmental Health and Safety Department. The job, she says, started as just a temporary assignment.
“Safety is a big issue in the entertainment industry,” said Jennifer. “It’s been nice to be able to help out with and be a part of that. I can separate the writing from that job and NBC Universal is OK with me doing the writing.”
Jennifer credits the hands-on experience she received at Elon as a good starting point for her screenwriting career. Film classes, taught by Assistant Professor of Cinema and Television Arts Ray Johnson, helped to guide her.
“It felt more like you were actually doing an internship and you were working for the communications department, whether it was writing an article for the newspaper or putting together stories for the news channel,” said Jennifer. “It definitely prepared me. It created a new learning environment for people who were just figuring out what they wanted to do.”
“Confessions of a Christmas Letter” premiered on the Hallmark Channel Nov. 17 and will re-air throughout December.