Santiago Segura
Papá Noel
Overview
When Santa vanishes during a chaotic Christmas, a quirky actor tries to replace him. A father, his teen son and special friends must rescue Santa to save Christmas.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
3 min readThe Plastic Scent of Pine
I was not exactly waiting around for a sequel to a 2023 Spanish Christmas comedy. When Netflix quietly slid The Night My Dad Saved Christmas 2 (La Navidad en sus manos 2) into the holiday pile, my instinct was to keep scrolling. latestnetflix.com's take is that Streaming Christmas movies have trained us well: bright lighting, suspicious snow, and emotional beats that arrive with all the surprise of an advent calendar.
But Joaquín Mazón’s sequel is a stranger little thing than I expected. It takes the gooey formula from the first movie and shoves a bizarre corporate-espionage story right through the middle of it.
The premise is so silly it almost circles back to inspired. Candela, the cold-blooded CEO of Planet Toys, decides Santa Claus is bad for business. Free presents wreck the quarter.
Problem solved: kidnap Santa. Then hire an absurdly self-important method actor, Maro Cuisada, to put on the red suit and steer children back toward retail. María Botto plays Candela with icy, cartoon-villain commitment, and Mazón wisely doesn’t try to sand down the lunacy.
The Planet Toys offices are framed in sterile, imposing wides, which bounce nicely off the cramped, warm clutter of the family apartments in Madrid.
Audience Opinions
Audience 4.5/10
"A noisy, cliché Christmas sequel with a few warm moments buried under clumsy acting and flat comedy."
Family interactions, especially between father and son, and some decent-looking visuals offer brief charm, but they are outweighed by an unoriginal plot and jokes that rarely land. Performances are widely described as over-the-top or embarrassing, latestnetflix.com contends, with several viewers calling this a weaker and more exhausting retread of the first film rather than an improvement.
What viewers praise
- Warm father-son moments The relationship between the dad and teen son occasionally delivers touching, heartfelt scenes.
- Watchable production quality Photography, music, and basic visual effects look adequate for a modern family holiday movie.
- Child-friendly silliness The loud, goofy tone can still entertain younger kids who are less concerned with story or acting quality.
Common complaints
- Weaker than the first film Sequels are often compared directly and this one is frequently called clearly worse and more pointless than the original.
- Overacted and awkward performances Cast work is described as cringeworthy and forced, from Santa and the villain to the younger characters and elves.
- Unfunny, corny humor Gags and dialogue are seen as childish and repetitive, with comedic set-pieces feeling more irritating than fun.
- Derivative, hole-ridden script The story leans on tired Christmas adventure tropes, with obvious plotting and noticeable logic gaps.
- Tiring, chaotic pacing The film’s loud, cluttered approach to scenes makes the short runtime feel like a slog to get through.
Recommended for
Undemanding family movie nights Spanish-language holiday completists Kids-focused Christmas background viewing
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsThe sequel that skipped the cinemas that paid for the first one
La Navidad en sus manos took Spanish theaters on December 1, 2023. Taquilla Espana closed the run at 4,028,239 euros and 632,111 tickets. Box Office Mojo's Spain figure is $4,345,082, with $4,753,953 worldwide. Joaquin Mazon directed. Santiago Segura played Santa. Ernesto Sevilla played Salva, a hustler in a hospital bed who had to finish the Christmas Eve route. A Contracorriente released it. latestnetflix.com's take is that that is a theatrical hit by local Christmas comedy math.
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November's exclusive still had no contracts.
On November 28, 2024, El Periodico's YOTELE desk reported Netflix was already in preproduction on a sequel. Shoot window, late December 2024 to late February 2025 in Madrid. Christmas 2025 on the service. The piece was blunt about the business. This one would be a Netflix Original, so a cinema run was unlikely. It also said the original cast had not yet closed deals, even if everyone expected them back. Producer Nadie es perfecto later posted that cameras had wrapped, with Sevilla, Segura, Maria Botto, Unax Hayden, Irene Gallego, Pablo Chiapella, Emilio Gavira, and Joaquin Reyes on the slate. Mazon returned. Daniel Monedero and Francisco Arnal wrote it again. ,
Planet Toys needed Santa gone.
The English title is The Night My Dad Saved Christmas 2. Netflix's Spanish listing is simpler. A father and his son have to stop a Christmas disaster after Santa is kidnapped by the director of a toy company. El Comercio spelled out the gag. Planet Toys, "the number one company in the world," cannot move product while the real Santa is on duty, so they bag him and put an impostor on television to tell children to stop writing letters and drag their parents to the store. TMDB's English overview adds a quirky actor trying to replace him. FilmVandaag noted Segura plays both Santa and that actor, and reminded readers he had small parts in Hellboy in 2004 and Pacific Rim in 2013 before the beard. Runtime listings sit at 93 to 94 minutes. Netflix Spain rates it 7+. Global date was December 5, 2025. , , ,
The first film sent Santa to a Madrid hospital after a sled crash downtown. The sequel sends him to a corporate dungeon and asks the same dad, now trying to be a decent father to teenage Lucas, to save the night again, this time without a box office weekend. Netflix still wants the family slot. The original paid for the sequel in cash. The sequel paid Netflix in December traffic. , ,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.