Oh we did that already. Ok but seriously, I promised myself I was going to be all writey-writey and then Hallmark Holiday Movie Season started and I’ve been lost in a world where Small Town America is the platonic ideal of modern life and not, say, a place where painkillers aren’t just for painmas and people frequently wear red headwear that isn’t a santa hat. IfyouknowwhatImsaying.

So far I have been witness to (or at least, been an inattentive witness to, in the background, while doing other things…):

Ready? This is not an exhaustive list, by the way. There are more I’ve had on and half-watched, but… I’m playing for time because I’ve just realised how long this list is and it’s embarrassing. Well, I’ve committed, so ok here we go.

I have seen:

A big city corporate guy who goes to visit his family bakery factory with an eye to automating it and then falls in love with the pretty blonde factory manager who is also a christmas-loving florist who something something true meaning of Christmas, and also baking. He moves to the small town. I think?

A party planner who has to work with another party planner who she seems to have nothing in common with but soon discovers she’s madly in love with as he teaches her the meaning of christmas and she teaches him the meaning of hanukkah and everyone learns the true importance of family as they share true love’s kiss under the mistletoe and over the menorah.

Another party planner who. when her old flame returns to town and asks her to plan his engagement party to his new partner (rude), pretends that her business partner/best friend is actually her boyfriend to make the old boyfriend jealous…  until she realises that her business partner should be her boyfriend and also something about the true meaning of Christmas, while also almost breaking up her old boyfriend and the poor clueless new fiancee, who didn’t ask for any of this shit.

A “sliding doors” style plot where another party planner (there are so many party planners, you guys!) misses/doesn’t miss her plane and we get to see two different versions of her life, both of which are awful because she is awful and everyone else in the movie is also awful. This one also contained some of the most hands-down “no, literally everything about this was a fireable offence no matter what universe you live in” sexual harassment ever put on screen.

A big city corporate accountant who travels to a small town to shut down a coat factory well known for a particularly amazing coat, only to discover that not only does the coat factory form the heartbeat of the town, but the town represents the heartbeat of christmas spirit and also she’s fallen in love with the owner of the factory so she sets out to reclaim the glory of the sweater they were first known for and save the sweater factory AND Christmas for the town and fall in love. And yes, I do know that I switched from coat factory to sweater factory halfway through, do you know why? BECAUSE THE MOVIE DID. WITHOUT BLINKING.

A big city lawyer who goes to a small town where they’re meant to shut down a historic inn but who discovers, once there, a community that exists around the inn which represents the true small-town spirit of Christmas and also she’s fallen in love with A GHOST WHO LIVES IN THE INN AND BECOMES REAL TWO WEEKS OF EVERY YEAR.

A harried single mother and professional social media influencer (yup) who has a groundhog day experience (but with Christmas Eve) in which she thinks she has to keep repeating the day until she gets a certain number of impressions on her content… but actually has to keep repeating it until she falls in love with the corporate producer from the company for whom she wants to be a brand ambassador and also remembers that family, not social media influencing, is the true meaning of Christmas.
(Is it though? Because what was Jesus if not a very smart content creator? What is the bible if not just a very drawn out early form of social media? Makes you think!)

A pair of insomniac strangers who discover that they can only sleep in each other’s presence, but are complete strangers, and she’s getting married in a christmas wedding in two weeks, but they fall in love and she runs him over twice and live happily ever christmas (this one may sound hard to describe, but trust me, it was even harder to watch)

A jaded hollywood script doctor who takes the “christmas train” across the country with her big-time producer boss and meets up with an old flame, also a writer, and together they write stories about the true meaning of Christmas as personified by the other passengers of the train, and also they solve crime.

A travel writer who takes a “Christmas Cruise” to “Christmas Island” (Not that one!) and finds love with the cruise director on the way, by way of a mess of unlikely plot twists and a giant mountain of terrible script.

A writer who runs away from her wedding to a kind-but-stuffy lawyer to go to her grandmother’s cottage in the woods where she falls in love with a handyman (and old flame, obvs), while her ex-fiancee finds love with her … sister?

ANOTHER writer who, desperate for advancement in her career in… Christmas journalism? Not sure?… goes to a small town where a Christmas movie was once filmed in order to do a hard-nosed journalistic expose of the real life love story behind it but instead falls in love with the cinema-owner, small-town life, family values, and whatever else. Was definitely not paying attention to this one (like most of them).

A fading pop star who goes to a small town in order to visit with a fan, but ends up falling in love with the fan’s dad (and family values, and small town life) and also writing a song with him which is becomes both her newest hit AND the least convincing holiday song imaginable.

A hapless christmas-loving detective who goes undercover in order to catch a gem thief but ends up falling in love with the gem thief who is also a lover of all things christmas and luckily, as it turns out, not a gem thief, while her mother (who is also the police captain), the other criminals, FBI agents etc, try and pretend very hard not to be canadian when they are all, clearly, extremely canadian (this is a common theme).

A big time property developer who returns to his small town to sell his family business (which was also a beloved community property to the townfolk) but runs in with his old flame, who is now a property lawyer who has ALSO returned from a big-time, but damaging big city life experience, and together they save the small-town drive-in that… he already agreed to sell? These people really need to think things through.

A small-town singer who returns to see her family for Christmas with a bodyguard who is pretending to be her boyfriend who, while there, manages to convince her family that small-town life is NOT all she needs and that she is a complex and ambitious artist who wants to be out in the world defining success for herself. Admittedly this one was a bit of an outlier. And also not terrible.

Several others but to be honest even I am getting embarrassed about how many of these I’m able to mindlessly consume but also still somehow remember.

Yes I do leave the house. And do other things. I swear it. It’s just this one month of the year and again, the pattern-finding part of my brain revels in the excuse to get lost in this nonsense. For many extremely valid totally intellectual academic dramaturgical and writerly reasons. Mmm-hm.

And also because I like them. So there.

And now I’ve just started another one that appears to be set in San Francisco (so I really WANT to watch it) but has introduced the main characters, one of whom (the bad boyfriend, who will be dumped in favor of an old flame or something quite soon?) is pretending to be British in the most painful way possible and I don’t know if I can sit through that.

But… I may be back to write more on this topic. I’m just warning you.