The Santa Stakeout 2021

Rookie Denver PD Detective Tanya Morris, having just moved from Wisconsin, and veteran Detective Ryan Anderson are like oil and water, the biggest of their differences being that Tanya works on evidence before coming to a conclusion while Ryan works on gut feelings. With a week before Christmas, they are partnered on a case of three thus far high end art thefts at major galleries, reluctantly partnered on their end in their differences. Their chief suspect is Francis Miller, who does have a rap sheet and who had worked at each gallery just before the thefts as the Christmas party Santa Claus. Noticing that the house next to his is for rent, they decide to conduct a quiet stakeout of him based out of that house. However, that quiet nature is disrupted when they are spotted by people in the neighborhood, meaning that they have to integrate themselves into the community, they going undercover as newlyweds. What’s worse in both their minds is that they believe the best way to watch Miller in plain sight is to be part of his Christmas Committee, which opens up another of the fundamental differences between Tanya and Ryan: Tanya loves everything about Christmas, she who would have spent Christmas on her own this year out of circumstance, while Ryan sees it solely as another day to watch football games with his buddies. In the process, they begin to have mixed feelings about Miller and the Committee: while he does exhibit suspicious behavior, they also see some true Christmas spirit in him, the Committee and his work as Santa. As a result, they come to some understandings of themselves in their dealings with him and with each other regardless of his guilt or innocence. —Huggo