They come earlier and earlier every year. Now they start on Hallowe’en night, floating in on the jangling peals of synthesized jingle bells, brightened by a festive palette of sparkly blue, russet red and evergreen, a canvas for the same three love stories over and over again.
For almost two months of the year, made-for-TV Christmas movies produced by Lifetime and Hallmark do their best to make your season bright. And while they are cheesy, predictable and sometimes cringe-worthily bad, we keep returning again and again. They are, as a Chicago Magazine article writer proclaims, “the white noise that feel like family.”
We watch the same stock footage of the Rockefeller Center skating rink while embellished credits proudly proclaim the name of a once-big '90s TV star. We know within the first five minutes how the romantic fates of the heroines coyly named Ivy, Holly, Noelle, Carol or Merry will end.
Christmas background via ShutterstockThe safety of this certainty wraps us with a warmth like mulled wine by a crackling fire. This formula, like your favorite reindeer-shaped cookie cutter, is just what you need as you write your Christmas cards or decorate that small tree you keep in your rec room.
Fortunately, Lifetime, ABC and especially Hallmark have started cranking holiday films out as elves might a popular toy in Santa’s Workshop (and at an alarming pace). A Fortune magazine article states that while Christmas 2010 produced six original Hallmark Holiday movies, this year they produced 21.
The target audience for the films lands in the female 25-54 age range. Most of these movies provide a heartwarming story of love lost and found.
A single mother finds her true love under the mistletoe, a widow gets a second chance at love. The magic of these films is enlivened by a spirit of hope emblazoned on our screens on constant rotation for weeks on end.
While we scoff at the poor production values and has-been stars, we recognize that the magic of the holidays can still be momentarily bottled on the small screen. For several moments shining in the 80-minute runtime, we think that the world is a glittering snowflake of romance and possibility where forgiveness and love are the greatest gifts of all. We, too, can find the fairy tale of Christmas.
This is the time of year when you can get away with anything! Love, hope, magic, snowless sets that betray the July filming schedule, cookie-baking sequences and montages of montages … everything is possible in a made-for-TV Christmas movie ... and therein lies the magic (even if we wouldn’t put up with this at any other time of year).
A sprinkling of plots.
The department store Christmas consultant turns out to be an angel. (Christmas At Claridges)
She’s a tailor’s daughter dating a man who happens to be a prince-in-disguise (A Royal Christmas)
He’s the reincarnation of her lost grandfather, returning to ensure she finds love on Christmas Eve (Angels and Ornaments)
The precocious child is the only one who can tell that the heroine is an angel (Christmas Magic)
She hits her head and falls in love with a store mannequin come to life (Holly’s Holiday)
He’s a corporate workaholic who gets one last chance to save his wife on Christmas Eve (Three Days)
He’s a bad boy musician who is forced to live with a small town minister’s family to restore his public image (Guess Who’s Coming to Christmas)
… And, like the twig arms of Frosty, the subgenres keep branching out …
She accidentally gets a hold of Santa’s naughty list (Naughty or Nice)
Saving the Christmas tree farm (the Tree that Saved Christmas)
Saving the children’s library (The Twelve Trees of Christmas)
Saving the family antique business from a corporate giant (Very Merry Mix-Up)
A Christmas corporation finding its soul during the holidays (Hats Off to Christmas)
There are Holiday Heists (Stealing Christmas, Christmas Caper and Christmas Bounty, wherein hijinks are the flavor of choice); Santa subsections (Matchmaker Santa, Finding Mrs. Clause, Charming Christmas); Santa on Trial (The Case for Christmas and the Santa Suit)
Fairy Tale Christmases: Christmas Belle retells Beauty and the Beast while Once Upon a Holiday borrows from Roman Holiday, featuring a runaway princess having a day of magical yuletide shenanigans in New York City.
Trading Christmas and Christmas Switch borrow on the popularity of the Hollywood film The Holiday by featuring festive house-swaps and musically themed movies like An En Vogue Christmas, A Country Christmas and the Mistle-Tones. For the thriller lover? A Snow Globe Christmas (where people are stuck in a corroding snow globe world) and Christmas Disaster.
Why We Love Them:
We live in a cynical world, and while I admit to reveling in the eye-roll moments and my penchant for mockery runs as rampant as my craving for tingly holiday joy, the very fact that there is an outlet that promotes peace, love, family (in all of its shapes and sizes) and acts of human goodness never ceases to put a smile on my face.
The magic of these movies and their consistent growth and popularity stems not from their production values, has-been TV stars or unremarkable plots. Humans still have an innate desire to see the love of family gatherings, to grab at a second chance to right a past mistake, to live life again, to ensure good triumphs over evil.
In this sense, made-for-TV Christmas movies possess a magic not just borne of their laughably unrealistic plots and chemistry-less romantic pairings, they draw from a deeper well: that of the Christmas stories of yore. There is a reason we return to A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Christmas Carol, the Nativity, the Gift of the Magi: Each instills a sense of wonder, of possibility and of a goodness borne of humanity.
The Bonus Drinking Game
- When a couple goes ice skating (take an extra shot if they take a kid)
- When an estranged parent or sibling returns
- When the opening credits feature a terrible Christmas pop single you will never hear played again
- When a character spots their high school flame at a Christmas tree farm
- When Ed Asner is Santa
- When a whiny-voiced kid sees an angel
- If someone says one of the following: “You’re my Christmas miracle,” “It was you all along!” or “If you can’t believe in second chances at Christmas, when can you ?”
- If Candace Cameron Bure is the romantic lead
Good luck!
Rachel lives in Toronto where she reads a lot of books, works in Educational Publishing, and writes mystery stories about Edwardian lady detectives. A Singular and Whimsical Problem, the Christmas-themed prequel novella to her Herringford and Watts series, was released Dec 1.
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