Good Luck Charlie, It's Christmas! is the first movie from the hit series. The Duncan family (Teddy, Gabe, Charlie, PJ, Amy and Bob) is going to spend the holiday with Amy's parents in Palm Springs, which is a lot warmer than the blizzard they are having in Denver. And Teddy is excited because she thinks this will be the first of two vacations for her this school year. Teddy is expecting to go to Florida with Ivy for spring break, but Bob and Amy tell her that she can only go if she gets her own plane ticket which has to be purchased by the next week. How is Teddy going to earn enough money for a trip to Florida by the following week? 

When the Duncan family is finally situated on the plane, an announcement is made to the passengers explaining the plane is oversold and asking if someone will give up their seat. In exchange for taking a later flight that person will get a free ticket anywhere the airline flies. Teddy immediately jumps up and is off the plane, followed closely by Amy who doesn't want her daughter going alone. This sets up the story for the movie as Amy and Teddy try to get to Palm Springs in time for Christmas (the next available airline seats are not for three days!), and in Palm Springs the rest of the family is dealing with Amy's set-in-their-ways senior citizen parents.

In an interview with Leigh-Allyn Baker (Amy Duncan), I learned that this entire movie was filmed in six weeks. "It was fast and furious," Leigh-Allyn Baker admitted. And in case you think the scenes are filled with fake snow, think again. They filmed on location in Utah with the real stuff. And it was cold! "We had a tough job on that film," Leigh-Allyn confided with a chuckle, "but it was so much fun."

Due to the nature of the storyline, with the family being split up for the majority of the film, the entire cast did not have much opportunity for scenes together as a family. "I know that the whole cast would love for there to be a Good Luck Charlie movie where the family actually has a movie together that's more based along the lines of our sitcom. We are so close with one another and the one thing we didn't enjoy was that our scenes were so separated in the film. That's what the story is - us coming back together. We're really one of those rare casts that can't get enough of each other and want to spend our time together."

In the film, the Duncan family has a crazy Christmas with everything they go through. I asked Leigh-Allyn Baker if she ever had anything whacky happen to her during a holiday. "I've had my fair share of lost luggage and planes being rerouted and so forth, but I've been pretty lucky on holiday travel." Yes, I think anyone who has traveled a lot by plane knows about lost luggage!

The storyline of the movie is based on the fact that Teddy accepts the airline's offer to get off the plane in exchange for another free ticket. "I've had it offered to me" Baker admitted, "when I was leaving my small town of Murray, Kentucky (The population was 17,741 at the 2010 census) and my parents were flying out here to LA with me to get me set up at USC for their theater program. They offered a lot of money at the time and free tickets if we would get off, and I gave them one look and said, 'Don't you dare.'" She was way too excited to get to Los Angeles.

While we talked about the movie and the holiday season, Leigh-Allyn told me a cute story about her son Griffin. "Up until recently he thought that a Christmas tree was called 'gentle' because every time he would approach the tree I would say, 'Gentle. Gentle.'"

This movie is a cute family film and a joy this holiday season. And little Mia (Charlie Duncan) is the cutest three-year-old on TV. Leigh-Allyn explained that it's not difficult for Mia to do her job. "[Mia's] doing great. She knows terminology like how to hit her mark. She knows, 'This is your cue.' It's amazing to watch her grow. Mia can say what she wants to say, but she is 3. It's what she wants to say, not necessarily what they want her to say." Ah, the fun of working with child actors.

Good Luck Charlie, It's Christmas! premiers on Disney Channel December 2, 2011.