Christmas Eve turns into an unplanned father-daughter ride-along in Dashing Through the Snow, a 2023 holiday comedy from director Tim Story.

What is Dashing Through the Snow about?

A divorced social worker who has spent years missing pieces of his daughter's life finally gets a stretch of uninterrupted time with her, only on the one night when his job keeps pulling him back to work. What starts as a quiet drive across town on Christmas Eve turns into a string of detours, strangers in crisis, and small emergencies that neither of them planned for. The film leans on that mismatch between a careful parent trying to make a holiday memory and a job that refuses to leave him alone, using the ride-along structure to string together comic set pieces without losing sight of the relationship at its center. Along the way, the pair cross paths with people who need help in ways big and small, and the night becomes less about getting anywhere specific and more about the two of them being stuck together and making the best of it.

About the cast

Lil Rel Howery anchors the film as the social worker trying to hold the night together, working opposite Madison Skye Validum as his daughter. Ludacris, Teyonah Parris, Oscar Nunez, and Ravi Patel round out a supporting cast built for quick comic turns rather than a single showcase role, with Gina Brillon and Marcus Lewis also appearing.

Context & significance

Dashing Through the Snow arrived in 2023 as part of a wave of family-first holiday comedies aimed squarely at Christmas Eve viewing, pairing broad physical comedy with a father-daughter core rather than the ensemble-ballroom format more common in the genre. Its 92-minute runtime keeps the pace brisk, favoring episodic stops over a single sprawling plot, and its United States setting grounds the comedy in familiar suburban and city street textures rather than a stylized holiday town.

Watching Dashing Through the Snow on Ktime

Dashing Through the Snow streams on K-Time with a free account login, no subscription required to read this page or browse the catalogue. K-Time's interface is built around the Persian-speaking diaspora, with Farsi navigation and search alongside English, making it easy for Persian-speaking households to find English-language holiday titles like this one without leaving a Farsi-first experience.