And I'm Watching Because...

 

So last night I started watching yet another Hallmark Christmas movie. Not my first, I confess. The plot?

A woman who is adopted and owns a restaurant does a DNA test and discovers she is half Jewish. But she loves Christmas and now has to learn about Hanukkah? 

Oh no!

However, she is lonely because her mother just died, so she’s excited to learn that newly-discovered relatives live oh so conveniently in the town next door. Yay!  She meets them. Finds out that the matriarch of the family is her biological mother who abandoned her at birth. Conflict!

But they end up resolving all issues and soon become BFFs. Yay! 

In the meantime, the mother has a friend who is a restaurant critic and he recently gave the adopted daughter's restaurant a poor review, so she doesn't like him, of course. More conflict. 

Boo!

I dozed off for a few minutes and when I woke up, the restaurant critic and the adopted daughter were holding hands and staring lovingly at a menorah. All this in the first 30 minutes.

Schmaltz to the tenth degree. In every movie, the women are smart and beautiful, the men are ambitious and kind, the towns are beautifully decorated, and even the snow remains white and pristine. By any stretch of the imagination, these plots are absolutely unbelievable.

And yet, I'll continue watching Hallmark's parade of dime-a-dozen Christmas movies starring mostly no one I've ever heard of, which is okay. Because in the same way that I devour Peanut M&Ms, three-cheese macaroni, and chocolate chip cookies, I'll click the remote with the full awareness that I'm about to indulge in something bad that I'll still enjoy.

Because these days sometimes the soul needs comfort food, too.

Oh, and the dog photo? No reason why except that he's my boy and looks super cute. Hey, maybe there's a movie there for Hallmark! Handsome hound howling for love on Christmas. 

Are you listening, Hallmark? Let's talk.