For some people, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year.
For Hannah, it is the season she would rather forget.
That tension drives A Christmas Journey, the new faith-based drama from award-winning filmmaker Jewell R. Powell. Imagine A Christmas Carol colliding with The Grinch, then add a deeply personal story about childhood wounds, unforgiveness, faith, and the possibility of starting again.
Hannah has spent years dreading Christmas. A painful childhood experience connected to the holiday has followed her into adulthood, leaving her bitter, emotionally distant, and determined not to let anyone get close enough to hurt her again.
She has not simply lost her Christmas spirit. She has built a life around protecting the wound.
Then her boss gives her an assignment that feels almost cruel: plan the office Christmas party.
What could possibly go wrong?
Hannah’s resentment comes spilling out, and in true Grinch fashion, she sabotages the celebration. The holiday party becomes the breaking point that exposes just how deeply the past still controls her present.
But Powell does not leave Hannah there.
A Journey She Never Asked to Take
Soon Hannah begins experiencing a series of extraordinary dreams that pull her through her past, present, and future.
What starts as an unwanted disruption becomes an emotional reckoning.
The dreams force Hannah to return to memories she has buried, examine the woman those experiences caused her to become, and consider where her life may be headed if nothing changes. The film’s official synopsis describes the journey as confronting the roots of Hannah’s brokenness and the life she constructed around that pain.
The question underneath the Christmas story is one that reaches far beyond the holidays:
What happens when the thing that hurt you is over, but you are still living as if it happened yesterday?
That is where A Christmas Journey becomes more than another seasonal movie.
The Christmas lights, office festivities, and familiar past-present-future structure provide the backdrop. The real story is about what happens when a person finally stops running from the source of the pain.
Healing Without Pretending the Hurt Never Happened
Powell’s film does not suggest that faith requires people to pretend everything is fine.
Instead, Hannah has to acknowledge what happened.
She must see how pain turned into bitterness, how bitterness became isolation, and how the walls she constructed for protection eventually became a prison.
The film’s message is that healing, forgiveness and renewed faith remain possible, even after years of carrying disappointment and anger.
“This is not just a Christmas film. It is a healing experience wrapped in a Christmas story,” Powell has said.
That is an important distinction.
A Christmas Journey is aimed at the person who can smile through the holidays while privately carrying grief. It is for the family member still angry about something that happened years ago. It is for the believer whose disappointment quietly became distance from God.
The official film description puts it simply: Hannah is forced to confront what she buried years earlier and begin moving toward healing, forgiveness, and renewed faith.
Familiar Faces Bring the Journey to Life
The film features C’yana Denby as Hannah, with a cast that includes Charmin Noel Lee, Aaron D. Spears, Sharonne Lanier, Michael J. Patterson, Faith Malonte, Jordan Aryana, Devin Thomas and Demetrius Harris.
Lee portrays Hannah’s boss, Ms. Angie, the woman whose Christmas-party assignment unknowingly sets Hannah’s transformation in motion.
The production also brings experienced talent behind the camera. Powell serves as writer, director, producer, and executive producer, with Dan Parsons as cinematographer, Timothy Stam as editor, Karen Robinson handling production design, Nathan Ashton overseeing sound design, and Joshua Lee Flowers providing music.
The result is a 105-minute, PG-13 faith-based drama that premiered July 25, 2026.
Jewell Powell’s Second Act Has a Message of Its Own
There is another journey behind the movie: Powell’s.
After more than 30 years working in federal acquisition, Powell stepped into filmmaking later in life. She continues working in the field as a contractor while building Impact Nations Entertainment and developing stories centered on faith, redemption, and transformation.
Her first feature, Unfailing Love, a contemporary retelling of the biblical story of Hosea, earned numerous honors, including Audience Choice at the International Christian Film & Music Festival and Best American Film at the 2026 Cannes Film Awards.
Now, with A Christmas Journey, Powell is telling audiences something through Hannah’s story that may also describe her own career:
The chapter you’re living does not have to be the final chapter.
Taking the Experience Beyond the Screen
A Christmas Journey begins its movie tour Saturday, November 7, 2026 at 3 p.m., with screenings planned in Hyattsville, Maryland; Newark, Delaware; Greenville and Charlotte, North Carolina; Orlando, Florida; Detroit, Michigan; Arlington, Virginia; and Mays Landing, New Jersey.
Reading, Pennsylvania follows on Sunday, November 8 at 3 p.m., with Dallas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Memphis among additional cities being considered.
Powell is also opening the film to churches, women’s ministries, campuses and community groups that want to host screenings and use the movie as a starting point for conversations about forgiveness and healing. The film’s outreach materials specifically position it as an experience intended to encourage audiences to confront their past and consider restoration in their own lives.
And perhaps that is the most powerful thing about A Christmas Journey.
Hannah begins the story wanting Christmas to go away.
Instead, Christmas becomes the doorway through which she is finally forced to face herself.
Her past defined her. Until she took the journey.
For movie tour information, tickets, and opportunities to host A Christmas Journey, visit ImpactNationsEntertainment.com.
