Christmas at Carrington's by Alexandra Brown. I wanted to shake the protagonist and scream "grow up!". Everyone seemed to be behaving like adolescents - I don't have a problem about that, but let them be schoolchildren doing so, not (alleged) adults. The flip side of that is Elizabeth George's series for young adults [Edge of ...]: they were wonderful characters, and I'm scouring the charity shops for more.
I mostly read murder-mysteries, but I take two weeks at Christmas to read Christmas themed books - most of which are chick lit. I don't mind that brief window of that genre, but there's got to be some standards! Last Christmas I managed to find a bunch of murder-mysteries with "Christmas" or "Advent" in the title, so I was a happy bunny.
And I was more discerning with the "Christmas at the Little Tea Room" choices.