It’s that time of year when Hallmark Christmas movies (and their imitators on Lifetime, Netflix, et. al.) are streaming 24/7. In these Christmas-cookie-cutter cinematic confections, you are apt to encounter many of the items on the following list. (N.B. you can use the list for a drinking game—at your peril.)
- The leads will arrange to meet somewhere/do something together, and one will say, “It’s a date,” leading to an awkward, “Well, not a ‘date’ date,” conversation (added 11/2024)
- A first kiss between the leads is interrupted just as their lips are about to make contact
- A homemade ornament is made/shown/discussed (a homemade wreath can substitute if necessary)
- A gingerbread house is constructed, or, at least, prominently featured in several shots
- There is a Christmas ball or dance, and the female lead is the only one there in a bright red gown (about which the male lead says, “You look amazing/beautiful/stunning/…)
- Firewood is chopped
- Someone says, “I can’t move here! My life is in (New York/Seattle/St. Louis/Minneapolis/some big city)”
- Eggnog is ostentatiously served
- Two characters (usually, but not necessarily, the leads) bond while ice skating
- A major expository scene between major characters takes place as they pick out a Christmas tree
- A Christmas tree is decorated
- There’s a snowball fight
- One of the leads is a single parent or is raising a cute niece/nephew who has been orphaned
- One or more of the main characters is mourning the recent loss of a parent/parent figure
- One of the leads delivers a variation on the line, “Mom always loved Christmas!”
- There’s a town tree-lighting ceremony
- A conflict between crass commercialism and small town values drives part of the story (in a drinking game, two drinks if the villain is a real estate developer)
- Someone says, “You can’t have too much Christmas”
- There’s one final misunderstanding/plot crisis that is handily resolved within the final three minutes