Warning: This article contains spoilers for Meet Me Next Christmas!
Netflix’s Meet Me Next Christmas includes an exciting love triangle that leaves viewers guessing until the end about who Layla will choose. The Netflix rom-com starts with Layla going to the airport and her flight getting cancelled. She goes into the lounge where she meets a man named James. After they develop a romantic connection, he proposes that they meet next Christmas at the Pentatonix concert – Layla’s yearly tradition – if they’re single.
One year later, Layla finds her boyfriend cheating on her and decides it’s fate. The universe is telling her to meet James at the Pentatonix concert, but she didn’t get a ticket that year because her boyfriend wanted to see Macklemore instead. For help, she seeks out a personal concierge named Teddy, who needs to make her happy if he wants to keep his job. Netflix’s cheesy and quintessential Christmas movie has multiple hilarious twists and turns that will keep the audience laughing as they watch Layla come to the decision of which man is really meant for her.
Who Layla Chooses Between Teddy & James In Meet Me Next Christmas
Layla Discovers She Has Feelings For Teddy At The End Of Meet Me Next Christmas
As time passes in Meet Me Next Christmas, it becomes abundantly clear that Layla and Teddy have developed feelings for one another. However, this puts her in the position of deciding whether to meet James at the concert or go after Teddy. Other than just choosing between the two men, her circumstance is also a decision between fate – which she’s leaned into the whole film – and choice – which she chastised Teddy for earlier. Ultimately, she figures out that her feelings truly lie with Teddy despite her fighting to get to James the whole time.
Luckily, James isn’t heartbroken by this decision because he has moved on in the year since their interaction. He found a relationship with a lovely woman who he’s taking to the Pentatonix concert. The couple cheer on Layla when she runs to the stage after Teddy’s grand gesture, showing that James is the genuine and kind person Layla remembers from the airport. They just have better matches with other people, which fits with the Netflix rom-com movie’s overall theme that choice can be better than fate.
Teddy’s Grand Gesture In Meet Me Next Christmas Explained
Teddy Professes His Feelings To Layla On The Pentatonix Stage
With the help of Pentatonix, Teddy plans to profess his feelings to Layla on the stage of the Pentatonix show after performing as Santa. Through their conversations, he figures out that she leans into fate, but she also has a sweet spot for grand gestures, romantic overtures, and emotional vulnerability. His plan includes all those things. What he doesn’t plan for is the fact that he has to go to the top of the stage set in order to drop onto the stage.
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Despite his overwhelming fear of heights in Meet Me Next Christmas, Teddy goes up to the top, but he panics when it comes time to drop down the chimney. He can’t step down into the drop chute. Teddy misses his musical cue, so Pentatonix gets the audience to hype him up with the entire group singing and clapping. Eventually, he takes the step and faces his fears, which is a romantic aspect of the story that Layla never gets to see since she isn’t in the room when he goes down the chimney.
How Layla Gets Her Pentatonix Ticket
Pentatonix Gets Invested In Layla’s Love Story Through DMs
The central conflict in Meet Me Next Christmas is the fact that Layla wants to go to the Pentatonix concert to meet James, believing him to be the man of her dreams. Unfortunately, the tickets were sold out on every website, leading her to seek out a personal concierge, Teddy, to get her one. Unfortunately, this proves much more difficult than expected. After trying a ticket booth, online websites, a scalper on Craigslist, and a vaguely cult-ish couple, the situation seems hopeless. Teddy even blows up the DMs of the Pentatonix Instagram, hoping they will help him.
However, Teddy finds out from his cousin – the most entertaining character in Meet Me Next Christmas – that they can have two tickets to the concert if they win the Snow Ball, a yearly lipsyncing competition. After getting trained by Jordy, the two give a fantastic performance to the song “Santa Baby” by Kiki Halliday and KOVAS. Sadly, they take second place in the Snow Ball competition, losing out on the tickets. Still, they win in that they kiss and realize their feelings for one another.
In a shocking twist, Pentatonix follows their story the whole time through Teddy’s DMs and decides to give Layla their one remaining ticket to the concert if Teddy agrees to play Santa Claus, planning to play matchmaker for the couple. Ultimately, this single act of kindness sets in motion the ending, which is equally cheesy and adorable.
Teddy & Layla’s Meet Cute Explained
Teddy And Layla Meet Before She Meets James
Early in Meet Me Next Christmas, Layla goes into the lounge after her flight gets canceled. She goes to take a quiche from the buffet, and a man reaches for it at the same time. The pair don’t speak for more than a few moments, but he still makes an impression by drawing a smiley face on her quiche in sriracha. This interaction is soon overshadowed in the movie by the meet cute between Layla and James.
If both acts are fate, it seems more likely that some cosmic force actually caused neither act, but instead, they’re mere coincidences that mattered because Layla thought they mattered.
However, the moment becomes important down the line since she keeps the glass that he accidentally dropped in her bag, an item that is sentimental to her since it’s when she met James. Ultimately, this glass is what helps Layla and Teddy finally understand that they had met before.
Though she thinks meeting James was fate, it could be argued that Teddy dropping his glass into her bag was just as much an act of the universe that they were meant to be together. Especially since, later in the movie, they have their first truly romantic moment when they’re cooking crème brûlée together in those same glass containers. Alternatively, if both acts are fate, it seems more likely that some cosmic force actually caused neither act, but instead, they’re mere coincidences that mattered because Layla thought they mattered.
The Real Meaning Of Meet Me Next Christmas’ Ending
Meet Me Next Christmas Asks Whether People Are Fated To Be Together
Meet Me Next Christmas is a classic Christmas love story where someone thinks that fate is guiding them to one person, but they actually end up falling for someone else. This same theme has been present repeatedly, including in numerous Hallmark movies and at the end of Prime Video’s About Fate. Overall, all these movies have the same core message – people’s lives are what they choose to make of it, and they are responsible for finding happiness in relationships.
Ultimately, there was no wrong choice between James and Teddy in Meet Me Next Christmas, just like there was no right choice between James’ girlfriend and Layla. They both had to choose a person who brought them joy, and everything comes down to being in the right place at the right time with someone who fits in their lives.
- Director
- Rusty Cundieff
- Release Date
- November 6, 2024
- Writers
- Molly Haldeman , Camilla Rubis
- Cast
- christina milian , Devale Ellis , Kofi Siriboe , Kalen Allen , Mitch Grassi , Scott Hoying , Kirstin Maldonado , Kevin Olusola , Matthew Sallee , Priyanka
- Character(s)
- Layla
- Runtime
- 105 Minutes