“One of the Murder She Baked movies did have a Christmas element to it, as it happened at Christmas,” she continued. “But I feel that wasn’t really a Christmas movie, so I was thrilled at the chance to do it again. My husband always asks how I find the time, but we’d wrapped Chronicle Mysteries for the year, so when they approached me the timing was perfect. I loved the story because it was so inspiring and beautiful, and I was thrilled at the opportunity to be included. On top of that, I loved filming it!”
Time for You to Come Home for Christmas is a follow-up to last year’s Time for Me to Come Home for Christmas (but with different characters), again executive produced by Blake Shelton, alongside his mother, Dorothy Shackleford, and based on his song and her book of the same name (written with Travis Thrasher). Sweeney plays Katherine, a single widowed mom venturing to her Virginia hometown for the holidays. Along the way she encounters friendly stranger Jack (Lucas Bryant, pictured above and below with Sweeney) on a train, journeying to perform at the town’s annual Christmas dance to benefit military families. As the two repeatedly encounter one another a close friendship develops, and as Jack endeavors to solve a mystery about a coin from his past, the results lead to new beginnings for both of them.
“This one is a different story to the one last year, yet in the same spirit as the first one,” explained Sweeney. “There are some Easter eggs for people who loved the first one, so the two are connected, but it’s a different group of people and a completely different story. It’s not a sequel, and to be honest, sequels can be a struggle. I believe it’s great that they decided to honor the spirit, tradition, heart and love of the first one and tell it in a completely different way.
“It also absolutely has a lovely mystery element to it,” she added. “It was fun for me reading the script as I didn’t know how the story would end or how it was all connected. Jack has this coin, and he’s trying to figure out who it belongs to, and he doesn’t mention it to my character, so I was reading all of his scenes asking myself, ‘What is this coin? Who owns it? How is it connected to him?’ When it all comes together it’s an emotional, lovely story point.”