12 Essential Elements for a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie

Written by Aileen McDonough and Becky Nero

I love Christmas movies. I own about 30 of them and from December 1st onward, I don’t watch any TV that is not holiday-related. Seriously. I have certain ones I watch at certain times depending on mood, time of day, and proximity to Christmas Day. There is a system, people. This holiday season, however, my husband decided to go off the reservation and delve into a new category of Christmas movies. I’m not sure what happened, but he is now obsessed with Hallmark Channel Christmas movies. My hockey-playing husband, who considers “Die Hard” a perfect Christmas movie, is watching Hallmark Channel Christmas movies every chance he gets, and he has even DVR’d a few to watch again.

Help me.

Now, for the record, I’m not knocking Hallmark. They make kickass cards and any company that casts Shirley MacLaine as an angel gets my undying support. But lesbee honest, Hallmark Channel movies are one thing — sentimental suburban escapism — but Hallmark Channel Christmas movies take things to a whole new level. This is sentimental suburban escapism on steroids, wrapped in sparkly paper, dunked in mulled cider, and topped with six-inch red and green ribbon curls. SIX. Inches.

I took to social media to share my bewilderment at this phenomenon, and good friends immediately came forward with their own Hallmark Channel Christmas movie reviews. Together, my good friend Becky and I compiled a list of essential elements that seem to appear in every Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. Here are twelve of them, in no particular order:

1. Everyone is pretty. There are no plain people in Hallmark land. Even the “character actors” playing best friends and in-laws are attractive. (Boy, are the in-laws attractive. And nice! Who are these people? I hope to God my kids don’t marry into a family like that, we’ll never see them again!)
2. Everyone is Christian. There are no “Hanukkah in the Heartland” or “A Kwanzaa Wish for Kylie” movies on the Hallmark Channel. Everyone celebrates Christmas and they all live in cute little towns where people walk around saying Merry Christmas as they conduct Christmas shopping in cute downtown areas or at outdoor Christmas fairs (or sometimes, they live in nondescript cities where virtually everyone is white, except a few assistants, co-workers, or old college roommates who happen to be black. Honestly, where are they getting good Chinese food in these big, fancy cities if there are no Asians or Jewish people?)
3. Daddy issues must be worked out over the course of the movie. Or any kind of issues. Because discovering the meaning of Christmas=discovering the meaning of life. Interestingly, there aren’t a lot of mommy issues going on, because moms are fucking awesome and even Hallmark knows this. Also, as Becky noticed in a disturbing trend, most of the moms are dead. But the mothers-in-law have somehow survived.
4. Men woo women by building snowmen, finding and/or restoring antique sleighs (if my husband and I had to meet in a Hallmark movie, we would have been fucked, because he’s many wonderful things but “handy” isn’t exactly one of them) or cooking or baking things for them. Or being really good with kids (that would have saved us. Thank God.)
5. High-powered executive ladies love to travel to small towns to find themselves and figure shit out. High-powered executive men don’t need to go anywhere, they find themselves and figure shit out by falling in love with the first quirky, Christmas-obsessed chick that crosses their path in the office/department store/snowy sidewalk.
6. Fake relationships are the BEST way to meet your life partner. Forget Match.com or eharmony. If you want to get married, starting a fake relationship is THE way to do it. Fake relationships turn into real relationships when the fake breakup makes the people realize they had REAL FEELINGS for each other.
7. There is no alcohol. (Except maybe — maybe! — champagne.) Everyone drinks festive beverages as virginal as the leading ladies: cocoa, hot spiced cider, etc. I saw two people reluctantly ending their fake relationship over mulled cider with a cinnamon stick. Hallmark Channel trifecta, achieved!
8. You get to see many TV and movie stars on the upward or downward slope of their careers. If it’s the former, you get to enjoy their so-stylish-at-the-time haircuts, and if it’s the latter, you get to see how their plastic surgery has worked out for them. (Donna Mills and post-lesbian-era Anne Heche are two examples of this.) Candace Cameron Bure deserves a special mention here because Hallmark has caught her all along her career trajectory from child star to “The View” to her child star role reprise.
9. There’s a lingo. Samples include:

Love requires a leap of faith.

Sparks flew when I met you.

I don’t know about you, but love walks through the rain.

10. The characters’ trendy scarf-tying game is on point. And the men are not afraid to wear them in all sorts of jaunty, metrosexual configurations. Speaking of men, all of these guys are in touch with their feelings and know how to express emotions better than Stuart Smalley.

11. Snow falls continuously and no one ever gets slushy, wet, or pissed off by it. No one ever slips and falls on ice (except in an adorable way) and certainly no one ever gets injured. It’s like everyone lives inside a fucking snow globe.

12. Last but not least: there is always a dead mother. And it’s all her fault that Amber, or Megan, or Cassie don’t like Christmas anymore, because she took all the love and joy and the whole fucking spirit of Christmas with her when she died. But fear not! The leading lady will rediscover the magic of Christmas in the small town that has now captivated her heart with Christmas cookies, hot single dads (or uncles who are raising their sister’s kids), and townspeople who quilt and carol to their hearts’ content.

And it will happen over cocoa. With marshmallows. Always.