Holiday Affair
Christmas Backsliders’ Day
A Quick Marathon of the Best Hallmark Christmas Movies
About Holiday Affair
We tried. Truly, we did. We took the decorations down on Candlemas, and yesterday we bit into the magical King Cake. We even played the brass band playlist, hoping it would jumpstart our winter-logged soul. But we weren’t ready. And so we come to Holiday Affair, the official day of Christmas relapse. The upshot is that we must now endure at least eight hours of Hallmark Christmas movies. It’s therapy and punishment in one: therashment. Yes, most of these films feature a big-city woman who inherits a Christmas inn and falls in love with a flannel-wearing man who doesn’t believe in emails. Yes, you’ll see snowball fights, last-minute tree lightings, corporate Scrooges redeemed by the power of small-town kindness, and career women reformed by hot cocoa. But somewhere in the avalanche of twinkle lights and second chances, you’ll start to feel it again: the ghost of Christmas past, gently smothering you. You’ll know you’re cured when you can’t watch one more cookie-baking montage. Until then, surrender and let the therashment do its work.
Ways to observe
(A) Low effort
Watch one Hallmark Christmas movie from this past season. Pretend it’s just for laughs. Let it emotionally wreck you anyway.
(B) Recommended
Queue up at least three Hallmark movies back-to-back. Create a drinking game (non-alcoholic or otherwise) for tropes such as: Snowball Fight, Overworked CEO, Tree Farm, Hot Cocoa Moment, Unseasonal Knitted Scarf.
(C) High effort
Host a Holiday Affair Marathon. Everyone must wear pajamas. Provide bingo cards featuring Hallmark tropes. Award prizes for whoever can correctly predict the “Holiday Festival” montage, the second-act misunderstanding, and the final kiss under artificial snow.
Inspiration
First, a shout-out to the greatest Christmas podcast of all time: Deck the Hallmark, my yearround source of Christmas inspiration, commentary, and the occasional reminder that watching too many Hallmark movies is both a lifestyle choice and a diagnosable condition.
Because here’s the truth: if you watch enough Hallmark films, you eventually develop an immunity to bizarre Christmas logic and repetitive plots. You stop asking why the big-city lawyer is suddenly running a tree farm, or why the sprightly great-aunt is also a magical matchmaker, or how there are three different ‘Christmas Festivals of Love’ in the same state. You simply accept it. You can predict the final kiss down to the second. You may even guess the moment the sentient ornament reveals its moral lesson. Hint: Christmas is what binds us as family.
Adornments
Watch
While You Were Sleeping (1995)
Set during a snow-dusted Chicago Christmas, this gentle rom-com follows lonely transit worker Lucy (Sandra Bullock) who saves a stranger and is mistaken for his fiancée. What ensues is a heartfelt farce of mistaken identity, big-city cynicism melting into small-family warmth, and of course an unlikely romance. Gross and/or hurray!
The Holiday (2006)
Two women (Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet) swap homes for Christmas—one in a storybook English village, the other in sunny L.A.—and along the way find love and fresh perspectives. Watch it twice today and you'll beg for an episode of Yellowstone to set you free.
The Christmas Card (2006)
A Hallmark Channel breakout hit about a soldier who falls in love after receiving an anonymous holiday card from a small-town woman.
The Christmas Prince (2017)
The made-for-Netflix phenomenon that launched a mini “NCU” (Netflix Christmas Universe). In this knowingly trope-filled tale, an aspiring journalist goes undercover in a picturesque kingdom and, of course, falls in love with a dashing prince.
Read
Christmas in the Movies: 30 Classics to Celebrate the Season by Jeremy Arnold
A delightful compendium that is essentially a Hall of Fame for holiday films. From It’s a Wonderful Life to Elf, each chapter explores a different Christmas classic, complete with behind-the-scenes anecdotes and cultural context.