With a sequel coming on Prime Video on 8 December 2023, now’s the time to pull on your Christmas jumper and start the festive film marathon with one of last year’s most enjoyable offerings: Your Christmas or Mine?
Full of warmth and good humour, the film focuses on a new couple, James and Hayley, whose reluctance to separate for Christmas with their respective families leads both of them to spontaneously swap trains at the last minute. The result is that they both find themselves stranded in each other’s lives – which are not only very different from their own but also rather different from what they’ve been telling each other. Lost phones, heavy snow, and a lot of misunderstandings lead to the kind of chaos no one’s looking for at this time of year – but which, perhaps, they all need.
As well as pace and a broad range of characters, Your Christmas or Mine? also boasts an impressive cast: Asa Butterfield as James opposite relative newcomer Cora Kirk as Hayley, along with Daniel Mays and Angela Griffin as Hayley’s parents, Alex Jennings as James’s father, and notable talents like Harriet Walter and David Bradley in supporting roles.
There’s also a lot of snow. While the forthcoming sequel takes care of the white stuff by setting the action in the Austrian Alps, for the first outing, it was all artificial – filming took place in the height of summer. The production took place in the venerated Pinewood Studios on the outskirts of London, but there were also plenty of real-life settings that had to be scattered with fake snow.
Marylebone Station
The busy station full of Santa-hatted revellers heading home to their families is indeed the real Marylebone, in central London – though rail buffs might point out that neither of our stars could get to their destinations from there. Built in the late 19th century, it’s a classic Victorian red-brick building, though most of what we see is much more recent. As well as its familiarity as a station in Monopoly, it has a pretty smart film CV, too, including the 60s spy classic The Ipcress File and Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night.
Macclesfield
We see lots of Hayley’s hometown in the film, but none of it is the real Cheshire town. Street scenes were mostly filmed in suburban London, while the station where we first meet Hayley’s dad Geoff is in Buckinghamshire. It’s High Wycombe station, another Victorian construction designed by the great Isambard Kingdom Brunel, though much changed since those days.
Kemble
The quaint little station where Hayley arrives looking for James is North Weald, a few miles northeast of Epping in Essex. This Victorian station, reminiscent of The Railway Children, is now run as part of the Epping Ongar Railway, a heritage route that runs steam and diesel locomotives.
Dorney Court
The star location of the film is undoubtedly James’s family home, a stately home befitting of his father’s title as The Earl of Gloucester. In real life, what we see is Dorney Court in Buckinghamshire, which dates back 600 years to Tudor times. It has been the manor house of Dorney village and home to the Palmer family since its inception. This historical site also has an impressive record as a film and TV location, having featured in several well-known productions.
Where was Your Christmas or Mine 2 filmed?
The sequel for Your Christmas or Mine? came out on Amazon Prime in December 2023, and while it features most of the same characters, the location is very different. For this film, the families take to the Alps – a far cry from quaint English towns and counties.
Innsbruck Airport
The families fly into Innsbruck Airport, the gateway to the Austrian Alps. It’s known as one of Europe’s hardest airports to fly into – pilots need special training before they are able to land there.
Sölden
A lot of the filming is done in Sölden, an Alpine ski resort in Tyrol. Situated in the Ötztal Valley, it is a fairytale land of snow-carpeted mountains and breathtaking glaciers. There are 144 kilometres of pistes to explore, plus three peaks accessible by cable car.
Schöne Aussicht hotel
This dreamy hotel is the main setting for the movie. Schöne Aussicht is a ski-in, ski-out adults-only resort set 2,090 metres above sea level, complete with a spa and a restaurant with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the slopes.
Your Christmas or Mine? and Your Christmas or Mine 2 are available to stream now on Prime Video.
