Those Sappy Holiday Movies...
You know
what I'm talking about. You watch 'em too; you know you do! You may
mock 'em. You may laugh at 'em (not with them), but you KNOW you
watch. Year after year, YOU watch. You have your favorites. You
KNOW you do! (Don't even try to deny it.) You try a few new ones
each year. (Is there really a way to watch ALL of them? I mean,
you'd have to be tuned in 24/7 for at least 8 weeks!) You may have your
favorite stations (Hallmark, Lifetime, Up...to name but a few) and you ARE watching.
My semi-addiction
goes all the way back to the last century! That final decade: 1990s with
the all-time "great" take on the A Christmas Carol (which could be a
blog post unto its own...how many different tv adaptions can we have? My
personal favorite would be the 1979 An American Christmas Carol. As a kid
I was pretty freaked out by the animated 1971 version): Ebby with Susan
Lucci. It aired annually on Lifetime and I actually looked forward to
it. It holds up semi-well, all things considered. Of course at the
end when Ebbie has been "reborn" she not only offers the homeless
woman a coat, but a job. Oh Ebbie, don't you think you should do a
reference check first? How are Dobson Department Store customers
going to feel about this? Will they have Christmas in their hearts when
she sells them a pair of shoes? (Am I taking this too far?)
As I
started thinking of some of my favorites my list grew way too long. Then
I started to break them down into categories (Family/weepies,
Silly/unbelievable). Even then my list was too long AND I knew I had
forgotten some. But I thought...what the heck...I'm just going to dive into
this as best I can! What I forget, you can remind me of. Or maybe
you can add some that I don't even know about.
Now the
"movies" listed below are for the most part made of tv...although a
few may not be...and many were specifically made for a channel (like Lifetime
or Hallmark). I'm going to start off with my list of some of silliest and
most unbelievable ones out there. Are you ready? Let's start
watching and reminiscing about:
1.
The 12 Men of Christmas: If the name doesn't get you the
promise of 12 semi-nude men posing for a calendar to raise funds for a Montana
Search and Rescue team should. (Did you even get based the words
Semi-nude men?) Starring Kristen Chenoweth who has dumped her fiancé and
boss (who were going at it behind her back) and can longer find a job in NYC,
it is totally believable that she would have to pack up and move to Montana to
take a job. But Anna Chumsky is excellent in the supporting
role. And there are half naked men.
2.
A Crown For Christmas: Danica McKellar joins the ranks of
Lacey Chabert (who?), Alicia Witt (wasn't she in Twin Peaks?) and Candace
Cameron-Bure (current reigning champ of Hallmark Christmas movies). She's
just a hotel maid, supporting her siblings, when she gets fired. No
worries, without so much as a job interview, she asked to be a governess in a
foreign country. She doesn't know that her charge is an adorable, but
predictably bratty Princess and that the man she bumped into (and sort of is
responsible for her firing) is the King. You can guess what happens...
3.
Holiday In Handcuffs: Melissa Joan Hart is having a bad week
AND she has to head to a remote cabin to celebrate Christmas with her perfect
family. She needs a boyfriend to make the family holiday bright...and so
she kidnaps Mario Lopez. Sounds perfectly reasonable, right? (And it must
have worked because she paired with Mario again in 2017 with a Very Merry Toy
Store. Mario must have been busy the year prior because Dean Cain stepped
into his shoes for Broadcasting Christmas.)
4.
The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year: Ralph (Henry
Winkler), not a frequent flier, has trouble at the airport, Morgan helps him
out (by lying and deceiving) and gets them in first class where they become
best buddies. As a result when Morgan's next flight is cancelled, Ralph
convinces his niece, Jennifer (the single mom/savvy businesswoman) to take him
in for the day. Ralph doesn't like Jennifer's boyfriend (hoping to be fiancé),
but thinks Morgan (a chef) is perfect husband material. You know the Fonz
is never wrong! (If you're too young to get the reference...Google
it!). Remember, deceit is your best friend!
5.
Naughty or Nice: Krissy Kringle who lives on Candy Cane Lane
(Yes...this is pivotal to the plot) gets canned on Christmas and is still
waiting for her boyfriend to propose. So she gets a temp job as an elf at
the mall. (Can it get more holiday than this?) Then she receives a book
(obviously meant for Santa) which lists all the naughties (and what their
naughty deed is). Krissy uses the book to call out/shame the naughty
ones, resulting in her embarrassing her boyfriend in front of his boss and freaking
out in front of a child at the mall...that's kind of naughty of Krissy now
isn't it? Who is naughty? Who is nice? You make the call.
6.
The Road To Christmas (2006 Lifetime movie, not to be confused
with 2018 The Road To Christmas from Hallmark. So many roads!)
Professional Photographer, Claire (Jennifer Grey and her new nose) needs to get
to Aspen so she can marry her Italian (and kind of obviously gay)
boyfriend. (Check out the opening photo shoot. Who knew that a
photo shoot could be such fun??? Was that vodka they were promoting? No
wonder why they were being so silly.) Her flight is forced to land, there
are no rental cars...well you get the idea. But she finally manages to
hitch a ride in a pick-up truck (with constant engine trouble...because you always
take a long drive in an unreliable vehicle) with widower Tom and his daughter
Hilly. (Meanwhile her intended is having a blast planning their wedding with
his boyfriend.) The scene at the hubcap museum should not be missed.
7.
A Very Merry Mix Up: Alice (Alicia Witt, a Hallmark staple)
owns/runs her late father's antique store and loves Christmas. Fiancé
Will loves her (or her real estate) and making killer deals. He arranges for
her to meet his parents (macrobiotic/don't touch me mom and business obsessed/hasn't
heard of the #metoo movement dad) in his hometown while he continues to wheel
and deal in the big city (and arranging to sell her building behind her back).
As a result of a series of mishaps, Alice ends up in a car accident with Matt
who she thinks is Will's brother. (It seems to be a small town and yet
two completely different William Mitchums live there and don't know about each
other? Neither family knows about each other? REALLY?)
Pre-Christmas cheer abounds and love (and not of a brotherly kind) starts to
blossom, until Alice finds out that she's with the wrong Mitchum family
(AWKWARD!)
8.
Trading Christmas: Emily (Faith Ford) loves Christmas, holiday
traditions and her daughter Heather. Heather wants to spend her Christmas
with boyfriend, Jason and not fly home for the holiday and make gingerbread
houses (from scratch) with her mom. Heather leads her mother to believe
that she will be staying in Boston (where she attends college), when in reality
she is flying to Phoenix with Jason. Emily decides to surprise Heather
and does a house (Washington) /condo (Boston) swap with anxious Christmas
hating writer, Charles. Emily's best buddy, Faith (Gabrielle
Miller...playing the nice friend and not the bitch as she does in Christmas At
Cartwrights) travels to Washington to surprise Emily, but instead gets
Charles. Emily find out Heather is in Phoenix and sets of the condo
alarm, leading the security company to call Charles' brother Ray. It's a
swap of confusion and coupling! But it must have paid off because 2 years
later Hallmark came up with Finding Christmas where highly successful
businessman, but jilted lover Sean trades his trendy NYC loft (complete with
fashion model neighbor) with country handyman/musician, Owen who has a lovely
but cold home (good things Owen's sister checks in on things). Same basic
premise, more music.
9.
Christmas At Cartwrights: Nicky (Alicia Witt is back
again!) is a single mom trying to find work for the holidays. She applies
at Cartwrights but the head of HR (Gabrielle Miller...who cranks up the bitch
for the holiday season) rejects her. However, with some mystical/divine
intervention, she manages to put on the Santa suit and become Cartwright's
Santa...delighting one and all (AND getting paid; did no one check out her W-2,
W-4, 1099 or whatever?). Bill, a store manager, becomes Santa's bestie
and looks to Santa for dating Nicky advice. Meanwhile, daughter Becky
can't spell worth a damn (and is called out for it by classmate -- mean girls
getting started early in live), but with the money mom is now making and help
from a teacher, you know she'll be a champ by the time the credits roll.
But what happens when it is revealed that Santa is a WOMAN?! (Quelle
horreur!)
10.
Christmas Under Wraps: I HAD to have one on this list that
starred Candace Cameron Bure. This was my choice! Candace stars as
a doctor/surgeon (I am NOT kidding) who does not get the fellowship she wants (her
one and ONLY choice...good planning) AND her boyfriend (who she thinks is about
to propose) breaks it off with her. What's a girl (doctor?) to do?
Take a job in remote town in ALASKA. (Where the sun is shining all the
time, IN DECEMBER and she walks around with her wool coat OPEN and NO HAT!)
Will she find a new love in the form of Andy (the town pilot and son of the town’s
largest employer who looks and sounds an awful lot like Santa)? Alaska
never looked so good (maybe because it's actually Salt Lake City)!
HOLIDAY IN HANDCUFFS! I watched it with the family and let's say that we like watching stupid movies together for a good laugh
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