I've gone and done it, y'all. After two years of burying mamas and cancer scares and trying to fix people only God can fix... I've morphed into a festively addle-brained Alice and fallen headfirst into the Hallmark Christmas Channel hole. Landed smack dab in Cheezy Holiday Wonderland... the place where starry-eyed romantics and quixotic old women go to binge-watch movies about finding the perfect Christmas tree AND true love.
I'm not even ashamed. At least not anymore.
I fell into the hole innocently enough. One night, after a particularly depressing news day, I stumbled upon a Hallmark Christmas movie while channel surfing. Within two hours, I was hooked. As my addiction grew and grew, I found new and inventive ways to watch in secret, not willing to fess up and face the ridicule of the Dickman.
But like any other addict... I overindulged and got caught. I was forced out of the Sappy Christmas Movie Closet.
It happened last Saturday, while Dickie was supposed to be running errands. There I was - spellbound and overwrought with worry that Jacqueline wouldn't reunite with her estranged Dad before Christmas. I didn't even notice when the Dickman walked into the room.
“Wanna go get some breakfast?” He asked cheerily. I wiped my snotty nose on my robe and said, “I... I... can't. It's not a good time.” He glanced at the TV then whipped his head back around to me. “Wait a minute... is this what I think it is? Are you really watching one of those Hallmark girly shows? Who are you and what have you done with my wife?”
I didn't even know how to answer. I wasn't sure what was happening to his wife.
The Dickman sat down to wait for me with a smirky grin on his face. Five minutes later, Hallmark had him by the Christmas balls.
“So, when is this lady gonna find out that her Dad really is a good guy?? I mean, he's helping her save Christmas for the WHOLE town - can't she see that?!” He exclaimed.
By the end of the show he was trying to hide his sniffling. As I wiped my own leaky eyes I teased in a singsong voice, “Look who's crying...” He belligerently blubbered. “I'm not crying – you're crying!”
What in the wide wide world of winter wonderlands are you doing to us, Hallmark? What is this magical holiday spell that you cast??
I've thought about it a lot, trying to figure out the special sauce that goes into the formula. The formula, itself, is nothing but predictable... Christmas cookie cutter plot lines and recurrent themes that go something like this:
Big city career girl (usually a lawyer) named Holly or Angel returns to her small town before Christmas just in time to save the family farm or bakery or Christmas-themed business and inevitably reunites with her high school boyfriend named Nick or Chris who is now the town handy man or hunky widower or secretly... a prince. And before you know it they find themselves falling in love over a cup of hot chocolate and a plate of gingerbread cookies and they run outside and have a snowball fight and end up falling together in the snow and they almost kiss but decide to make snow angels instead and somehow his hair never gets wet and her mascara never runs and then a protagonist shows up in the form of a beautiful but shallow ex-girlfriend or a skinny jean-wearing metrosexual ex-boyfriend and the budding romance is nipped until they miraculously find each other across the room at the local Christmas pageant and realize that OH MY GOSH it was all a big misunderstanding and she truly deeply loves him! He's always been The One! They're SOUL MATES! And look, WHAT A SURPRISE! There's mistletoe hanging RIGHT OVER THEIR PERFECT HEADS. So they seal it with a chaste (no tongue) but loving kiss and They All Live Happily Ever After.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
It doesn't even matter that only six or seven actors are passed around amongst a bajillion Hallmark Christmas movies... it doesn't feel incestuous-y at all. The only thing that matters is that within two short hours, everything gets tied up with a big red bow and Love Always Wins. Is it real life? No, Virginia, it is not. In real life, there is no way to fit five winter coats into one little suitcase. In real life, there are no perfect Christmas dinners because our family is more like Cousin Eddie with the metal plate in his head. In real life, when bows come untied, sometimes they stay that way.
So don't mind me while I check my logic under the mistletoe, bury my head in the fake snow and escape this chaotic and troubled world for a few hours. The sweetness overload is totally worth the rise in my insulin levels. And all I want to do after watching one of these movies is dress up in red and eat fruitcake and go caroling. Or open a Christmas tree farm and drive a sleigh pulled by a horse named Bobtail. With bells that ring.
It's pure magic, y'all.
Who couldn't use a little Christmas Magic... complete with sappy background music, bottomless cups of frothy hot chocolate and a love that rescues you in the nick of time?
