Angel in the Family

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MEREDITH BAXTER IS DREAMING OF AN ANXIETY-FREE CHRISTMAS

Commercialism has soured Meredith Baxter a little on Christmas.

“Don’t get me wrong,” says the former “Family Ties” mom, the mother of five grown children (with two grandkids) in real life.  “We still celebrate.  Mine is a classic American family.  But Christmas is such an emotional time.  It’s fraught with expectations and anxiety.  I think that taints the holidays a little.”

It’s why Thanksgiving, not Christmas, is Baxter’s favorite holiday.  “Because of the lack of expectations.  We just buy food and we eat it.  It’s about family being together.  It hasn’t taken the mercenary turn that Christmas has.  It’s not about ‘What did you get me??!!’”

Nevertheless, there’s something about a heartwarming Christmas story that appeals to the Emmy^®-nominated actress.   In addition to more holiday-themed TV series episodes than she can remember, Baxter has starred in three Christmas movies, including the new Hallmark Channel Original “Angel in the Family.”

“I especially like them when they have an enduring theme,” she says.  “And it’s nice when they have happy endings, as this one does.”

Baxter plays the title angel in “Angel in the Family,” a tale that reunites an estranged family ripped apart by the wife/mother’s death.  Baxter’s character, the late and greatly missed Lorraine, returns one miraculous Christmas day to help her still-grieving husband (Ronny Cox) and grown daughters (Tracy Needham and Natasha Gregson Wagner).

“But the thing I liked is that there’s nothing desperately sentimental about it,” Baxter says. “I am not attracted to schmaltz. It doesn’t work for me when something is too sentimental or too precious.

“But I liked this because there were surprising, fleeting touches of humor.  There’s a twist here, which is that she comes back to fix everything in her family’s lives and she realizes that she had issues of her own that need fixing.”Baxter has played all kinds of roles in her career, from fresh-faced ingenue to movie-of-the-week murderess.  But for many viewers, she will forever be Elyse Keaton, the wife and mom of “Family Ties.” Maybe she genuinely underestimates the impact that she and her TV family made in the 1980s, when Family Ties ranked among the top shows on the air. Or maybe she merely allowed herself to forget. But Baxter still finds it a little surprising when fans of the family Keaton demonstrate that THEY haven’t forgotten.

“It’s always very gratifying and it’s always very unexpected, at least on my part,” Baxter says.  “It’s always surprising when people go, ‘Hey, where’s Alex (a reference to her TV son, played by Michael J. Fox)?’  And I’ll think, ‘What?  Oh, yeah!’  But it happens all the time.  That’s just the way people connect with me.  And that’s fine, because it means that show had some weight in people’s lives.  That’s a good thing.”

Although she is unsure what will come next.  But she’s confident she’ll be up to any challenges that await.  “I threw out my master plan long ago,” Baxter says, “because life doesn’t seem to follow any of our plans anyway.  So my job is to see what happens and bring as much grace and wisdom and humor to whatever is going to transpire.”

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