I unabashedly love Christmas-themed rom-coms.
It’s one of the things that really gets me into the holiday spirit. And the more cookie-cutter predictable, the better.
Hallmark is the known brand for these movies and churns them out in droves.
But Netflix and others have plenty of offerings around the holidays as well. budget shoddily made ones on lesser-known channels. I myself prefer the lower budget shoddily made ones on lesser known channels:
Such as ION Television.
If we know we’re going to be watching them anyway this holiday season…
Why not make a game out of it?
Below is a checklist of things you may typically find in a garden variety Christmas rom-com. Take a look at the list and check off each one that appears in the movie you are watching.
Some questions have extra points you can earn. At the end of the movie, tally up your total of boxes checked and extra points, and post your score in the comment section.
- Name of the movie that has the word “Christmas:”
- A famous person and a common person getting together. One extra point if the famous person is a prince or a princess from a fictional country that ends in the letter “a”. Two points if their identity is hidden.
- A bakery, or a baking contest.
- Reconnecting with an old relationship. One extra point if it’s from high school.
- A house, lodge, banquet hall or resort with all wooden surfaces.
- Matching holiday sweaters. One extra point if they are red.
- A successful businessperson from “the big city”, who ends up in a small town at Christmastime. One extra point if the big city is New York.
- Ice skating. One extra point if one of the romantic leads slips.
- Two people who can’t stand each other initially, then get together, then break up, then end up together after a grand gesture. One extra point if said gesture happens on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Two extra points if it’s at an airport.
- A dog.
- One extra point if it’s wearing a sweater.
- Two extra points if it’s a rescue.
- A jazzy version of a Christmas song. One extra point if it’s in the opening credits.
- A pushy sibling or friend that dispenses well-meaning but overbearing and cliché dating advice.
- Hot Cocoa. One extra point if it’s in a Christmas-themed mug.
- The female lead in a red or green dress. One extra point if she is also wearing a Santa hat.
- An overly concerned mom that never stops bringing up the fact that her daughter is still single. One extra point if the daughter brings a fake boyfriend home for the holidays to get everyone off of her back.
- An engagement ring that gets returned before the end of the movie.
- One extra point if the spurned fiancé/fiancée was overly obsessed with becoming a financially successful power couple.
- An event planner or wedding planner as a main character.
- A boyfriend or girlfriend that shows up in town unexpectedly, complicating things significantly
- A holiday festival in a quaint small town.
- A Christmas ball or dance
- A big lie or secret that eventually blows up the relationship, temporarily of course.
- Red wine
- A cute niece somewhere between 5 to 10 years old. One extra point if she tells Santa her Christmas wish.
- A character wearing red talking to a character wearing green.
- A horse, for whatever reason
- A kiss as the snow is falling
- A jerk boss
- Magic
- A scene involving mistletoe. One extra point if it’s awkward.
- Lacey Chabert
After making this list, I watched a random holiday rom-com that I had not seen before, Four Christmases and a Wedding, to see how many points I could get.
I scored a 15.
That is the number to beat for now.
Have fun and happy holiday rom-comming for those who celebrate!
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RB, I’ll admit these aren’t my thing. However, I agree with you that they’re a staple of the season, and I am going to a family wedding next week, so I might not be able to avoid them. I’ll keep this on hand to have a bit of fun with the whole thing. Merry Christmas!
mt, are these real promotional shots, or did you create them? For some reason, I’m thinking the latter. (If so, way to go!)
Those are all real movies that mt referenced in those shots. I’ve only seen a couple of them, but I can tell you that they all exist.
Short answer: All of these are actual movies!
Longer answer: In the early days of the site, I had a lot of fun creating Photoshopped and other such manipulations to create a visual joke. But over the past year or so, I’ve steered away from doing that kind of thing, because I think actual photography and real imaging works better about 98% of the time.
So now, I only do it on rare occasions; an example is the article’s main photo. It’s a legit Hallmark movie, I just added the “checklist” stuff.
And for those asking the next logical question: for both imaging and literary content, TNOCS will remail AI-free.
If you like low budget Christmas movies made for other networks, you should check out Greyson Family Christmas. It was made for Bounce a few years back and takes the unusual approach of having the main couple already together at the beginning of the film. It starts out to be a simple farce but turns into a shockingly astute study of family dynamics, particularly mother/daughter relations.
I will definitely check that out. I feel like I may have seen it, as it sounds familiar and I have seen some Christmas movies on Bounce, such as Christmas in Compton, but I’ll watch it either way.
I don’t often watch any kind of romance unless the romance is secondary to a larger plot. But if I am somewhere there is one playing this year, I will pay more attention than usual and keep score.
My personal recommendation for you-
If I watch one, this will be it.
Take it from me, do NOT turn this into a drinking game.
Bah humbug! Each to their own but they’re not for me. Though a drinking game would help. Preferably with several drinks to warm me up before we get started.
When I rewatch Muppets Christmas Carol I’ll see how I score. Does Kermit count as a character wearing green? And does a muppet horse earn the same point as an actual horse?
Muppet Christmas Carol is not a rom com, but if you want to play the game with it and see what happens, knock yourself out! And there are no inherent restrictions on whether or not something is Muppet or real.
Ha! Sure fire recipe for alcohol poisoning
Lacey Chabert is a genre.
Correct
I will have to run this checklist past Ms. Cheez, as she is checking out “Christmas on the Alpaca Farm” and “Christmas at the Catnip Cafe” this season.
She has strong potential to beat my score with either of those beauties.