Haul Out The Holly | Directed by Mclain Nelson
Meet Me Next Christmas | Directed by Rusty Cundieff
My Dad's Christmas Date | Directed by Mick Davis
All streaming on Netflix
Welcome to the world of holiday Hallmark movies. Somewhere around twenty years ago, in the early naughties, the greeting card powerhouse invented a trope of movies driven by predictable plots almost always involving high-powered yet brokenhearted women, small town settings, cozy Christmas vibes, and hot, very hot men. While this is not a genre that typically catches my fancy, here are three recent offerings that I've enjoyed.
Mild spoilers ensue.
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^ Haul Out The Holly
Newly single Emily heads to her parents' snowy suburban home, hoping to cocoon through a cozy Christmas, only to discover that her parents are leaving for Florida and she's in charge of decorating the house up to colossal community expectations. Lo and behold, the neighbor and HOA president in charge of holding her to standards is her long lost childhood soul mate, he of steel blue eyes and the perfect sprinkle of freckles. Hilarity ensues as Emily resists and eventually celebrates their wacky cul de sac traditions, and maybe even falls in love.
What makes this film stand out is that it carefully steps around the usual machinations of gooey romance and fills in all the resulting gaps with bits of quirky off-beat humor. References to Nickelback, Star Wars, It's a Wonderful Life, and Fresh Price of Bel Air pepper the plot which left this viewer snorting with laughter instead of rolling my eyes.
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^ Meet Me Next Christmas
Last Christmas Eve, Layla met her Prince Charming at snowed-in O'Hare, and this Christmas she's desperately seeking a ticket to a concert where he's promised to meet her. She hires a concierge to help her turn up just one highly coveted seat, and the two of them race around holiday-bedecked New York City in hot pursuit of various leads. In the end, Layla finds her ticket but learns that maybe her Prince is not who she thought.
This movie is smarter than most. Yes, it stereotypically features a bestie who gives our female lead dubious relationship advice during cozy chats in their jammies, and a grandma-aged lady who offers plates of tasty holiday goodies and wraps everyone up in warm Christmas hugs. But the story takes place in a recognizable and romantic big city, rather than yet another Stars Hollow clone, and features a wee bit of a twist ending that we didn't see coming in, oh, let's say the first fifty seconds of the plot.
Also, and maybe most importantly, this movie is cast with people of color. What a refreshing change.
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^ My Dad's Christmas Date
The title and the generic synopses of this film suggest it's about a teenage girl who tries to set her widowed dad up with a new lady, a la Billboard Dad.
But that's not it at all.
You see, Jules has a broken heart. So does David, her dad. They lost their beloved mom/wife in a car crash two years earlier, and both of them are still floundering in their grief, mostly by taking out their understandable pain and anger on one another. Jules' plan to land David a girlfriend is nothing more or less than her desperate attempt to help them both break this awful cycle and move on. But what we, her voyeuristic viewers understand, is that neither dad nor daughter can move on until they heal their relationship with each other.
This is not a sugary sweet, sexy, sappy Christmas movie. It's real and painful and though the ending is gently positive, the mood of the story is bittersweet at best.
And that is exactly what makes it so very beautiful.
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Christmas Schmistmas.
My mother loved Christmas. But - although she couldn't articulate this is so many words - she felt let down by the holiday. Reality always fell short of her expectations for the love and warmth and genuine contentment she hoped to find on that special day, which led her to fall back on her short-hand expression of frustration:
Christmas Schmistmas.
And while my younger self didn't quite know how to respond to her pain and oft-repeated refrain, I get it now.
As humans, as women, and especially as mothers, we deeply crave the connection that Christmas teases us to believe is possible. We yearn for it with all our being:
Watching our young ones' faces open with delight over Christmas surprises.
Gathering all our grown babies back together so they can reconnect over their childhood joys.
Seeking to find not what divides us but bonding over the love we share.
Serving our family and friends food that feeds their stomachs and their souls.
Feeling peace on earth, right at our very fingertips.
This is all a lovely dream. And I believe that one day, we will find all this and more in eternity.
In fact, I think it's the eternal nature of our souls that makes us crave this perfection while we are living our entirely imperfect lives here on earth.
And that's the rub. We ache for that cozy glow of contentment, that blazing fire of love that we believe is possible at Christmastime most of all.
But Christmas Schmistmas. Life just doesn't usually work out that way.
So enter the postmodern Christmas movies. They help us fill up this space between our dreams and reality. They build in us with the hope that somewhere, somehow, Christmas dreams really do come true and all is calm, all is bright. And you know, for many of us, it works. Reality is suspended for somewhere around 90 minutes, and we can live in the cozy glow of a beautiful, perfect, snow globe of a Christmas dream.
Which is lovely.
As long as we remind ourselves that perfection only happens in heaven and holiday rom coms, and take it all in stride when the kids cry, the adults bicker over politics, the dog licks the plum pudding, and we're tempted to lock ourselves in the bathroom and cry.
Christmas Schmistmas
Life is a crazy dance.
All we can do is celebrate together and hope for the best.
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What I'm watching lately.
Hi Diane! I have watched 2 out of the 3 and I fully agree with your analysis!! Merry Christmas!!🥰😍🎄
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