The goal. Five puzzles a day, the same five for everyone, from October 15 to New Year's Day. Each one starts at a TV Christmas movie and ends at the movie in the gold tag. Work your way down: pick a star of the current movie, then pick another Christmas movie that star led, and keep going until you arrive.

Picking. The first puzzle of the day shows a short list at each step, and the lists grow with every puzzle until the fifth shows everyone. Crossed-out names are wrong turns that won't get you closer.

Changing your mind. Every name higher up the tree can be tapped. Tap a movie, or a star you picked (marked ↩), to go back to that point. Tap a different star in any group to go back there and take them instead. Each step you undo costs 10 points and one move, and so does the switch; later puzzles multiply that like everything else. The cost shows when you hover.

Hints. The 💡 tells you how many names in the group get you closer, then crosses off wrong turns one at a time. It never names the answer, and it disappears when there's nothing left to narrow down. Each one costs 20 points.

Scoring. Reaching the target in par hops is worth 100, plus up to 20 for time left on the clock. You lose 20 for each hop over par, 20 for each hint, 15 for each wrong guess, and 10 each time you back up or swap. Any finish is worth at least 10. Later puzzles count for more: the first is ×1, then ×1.5, ×2, ×2.5 and ×3 for the fifth, so a perfect day is 1,200.

Scoring zero. Three wrong guesses, running out of moves, running out of time, or giving up.

Movies and their stars come from Wikipedia's lists of Hallmark Channel original movies (2020s, 2010s, 2000s), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this game's movie data is shared under the same licence. A movie counts the leads listed there. Markit isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Hallmark or Crown Media.