The juicy, vibrant red fruit of the irresistibly delicious-looking dessert takes center stage in John Stimpson’s “A Cherry Pie Christmas.” The holiday romance, showing at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center on Dec. 18, has just the right amount of sweetness to make you smile as the story unfolds.
The premise is straightforward. Emma Parker (Katie Leclerc), a successful pastry chef from Chicago, returns to her snowy hometown in the Midwest’s Christmas capital, Door County, Wis. Her mother (Debrah Farentino) and father (Ed Amatrudo) run Parker Orchards, a family business passed down for five generations, famous for its delicious cherries. Emma is joyously welcomed back. However, it quickly becomes clear that her parents want her to stay and take over the orchard permanently. But Emma, who left Door County for a bigger career, is eagerly pursuing a prestigious executive pastry chef position in New York City.
Although Emma knows she doesn’t want to run Parker Orchards, she does want to win the town’s annual holiday cherry pie bake-off to make her mother happy. It is something Emma and her grandmother did when Emma was young. When she goes in search of her grandmother’s recipe, the card on which it’s written has a small piece torn off. Emma bakes many a cherry pie to try and discover the missing ingredient, and as any worthy chef would, experiments with adding her own flair to the dessert as well. Watching her work through the various permutations is great fun … and the joy of the folks who dig in is an inspiration to pursue our own baking efforts before the holidays arrive.
It turns out, it’s not just Emma who is back in Door County, but her old high school sweetheart, Mitch (Ryan Carnes). Although he was the one who broke up with her before college, sparks clearly fly from the first moment they reconnect at the local bookstore. Although Mitch made a life for himself after leaving Door County, he has returned home, for various reasons, to take over his family’s fishing business.
Questions swirl as the plot unfolds. Should Emma stay and save her family’s orchard from becoming a housing development? Will she and Mitch get back together again? Will Emma win the highly coveted cherry pie contest, which could bring much-needed publicity to the orchard?
While the story is fictional, the location, for all its Hallmark card–like Christmas wintertime beauty, is real. “A Cherry Pie Christmas” was filmed in Door County, a real-life location in northern Wisconsin, on a peninsula between Green Bay and Lake Michigan. The famous cherry-producing region is known for its quaint towns and scenery, and Stimpson used actual local businesses and landmarks throughout.
Stimpson will participate in a Q&A after the screening. He has longstanding ties to the Vineyard, including working as a lifeguard at the Chappaquiddick Beach Club and singing at the Seafood Shanty in his youth. Asked about how the film came about, he shares, “The tourism group in Door County reached out because they wanted a Christmas movie to be shot there. They call Door County ‘the Cape Cod of the Midwest.’ The tourism group, along with the statewide Wisconsin Tourism Board, as well as the dairy farmers, came together and offered a significant grant, so we went and shot the movie.” The film has been very successful in the area, and Door County has set up a movie trail that highlights the real locations featured in the movie — inviting fans to explore the charming shops, cozy inns, and scenic backdrops that brought the story to life onscreen.
Speaking about developing the story, Stimpson says, “I took a couple of scouting trips and did some online research, and discovered that cherries and cherry farming are huge, with cherry pie being the staple dessert. I also realized that passing along a multigenerational family business is kind of the Door County way. So, it all came together.”
With everything that is going on these days, including the stress of the holidays themselves, “A Cherry Pie Christmas” is a feel-good respite. Stimpson shares, “I feel pretty blessed that I get to make movies that just spread joy.”
“A Cherry Pie Christmas” screens at the M.V. Film Center on Dec. 18. For tickets and information, visit https://mvfilmsociety.com/2025/11/a-cherry-pie-christmas/.