‘When Christmas Was Young’ adds extra ingredient to holiday film formula

“A solid story with conflict, snow, a nice small town and everything solved by the end of the film,” says Robert Tate Miller, a veteran of holiday books and movies.

What “When Christmas Was Young,” his latest, has that others don’t is a song written by Sheryl Crow.

“We wanted to do something that had not really been done,” Miller says. The song “brings our couple together and drives the story.”

Tyler Hilton plays a headstrong music manager in need of a hit for his client. He finds one that was written by a singer-songwriter, played by Karen David, who abandoned her dreams of making it big years earlier.

“The vibe I got from (the character) was that he was just this guy using humor and hubris as a shell and I just related to it,” Hilton says. “I felt for this guy.”

Similarly, David was taken by the connection she had with her character, Melody. “It took me back to my singer-songwriter days and what that was like starting out,” she says. “I felt the connection so deeply.”

Hilton, who’s also a veteran of holiday films, said Crow’s participation upped the ante and made him want to excel. “There’s just an element of, like, ‘Let’s do this,’ in every moment. I felt that from everyone. I didn’t feel anyone was phoning it in or just doing another Christmas film.”

To get things started, Crow wrote the title song.

“When our producer sent the track over, I was in London on a busy commuter train,” David says. “Everyone was grouchy and grumpy and there I was, just beaming, thinking, ‘Oh my god, I’m hearing Sheryl Crow sing this demo.’ It was just a dream come true from there.”

David asked her husband, Grammy nominee Carl Ryden, if he might consider recording the song in their newly built home studio. “We were still in the middle of house remodeling but it was a dream come true to sing such a beautiful song,” she says. “It just makes the whole film so magical.”

Interestingly, Hilton routinely plays a musician. “I’ve been doing music professionally since I was 15, but I’ve never really played the music business side of things,” he says. “It was kind of fun to embody a lot of the people I’ve worked with – the kind of pressure they’re under and what the stakes are for them.”

David, a veteran of such musical shows as “Galavant,” didn’t see herself as a musical actress when she went to school in London. “I’d never done a musical before” and yet when she got out she was in the original cast of “Mamma Mia!” Friends said, “You’re going to ruin your whole career before it even gets started because you’re going to do this musical based on ABBA and it’s going to be the biggest flop.”

“We still have a laugh about that,” David says.

Signed to a record deal while in London, she got a taste of her character’s disappointment: Her label merged with Sony and “I lost my whole team. That was a really soul-destroying point in my life.”

Agents, however, saw it as a way to pivot to nonmusical roles. She landed parts in a number of series, including “Fear the Walking Dead,” “Barry” and “Criminal Minds.”

What’s nice about “When Christmas Was Young” is that music is the heart of the story. “It’s what unifies all of us,” David says. “It’s kind of ruined me now. It’s nice to be back in the studio and recording again.”

Checking all the boxes? The CBS film accomplishes that – and a bit more.

“When Christmas Was Young” airs Dec. 18 on CBS.