The million dollar log cabin tucked back into the woods, the snow-covered white pines, the log burning fire, the perfect woman/man laughing along with the family: the perfect Christmas. Why can’t Christmas really be that way? In the real world, families are stressed out, some are homeless, and some are in small quarters with eight or more people crammed all together. Hallmark, the “heart” of Christmas, is known for their cliche, flawless, perfect Christmas movies. You know it’s a Hallmark film when:

A city girl comes home for the holidays

The city girl comes back to the country for the holidays to see family. Little does she know, she comes back only to reunite with her high school crush, though she has a boyfriend back home. The two begin talking and eventually they fall in love, leaving the city-slicker boyfriend speechless. This results in the jealous city boy acting immaturely and most likely trying to sabotage the girl’s family business. A perfect example of this is displayed in Moonlight and Mistletoe, based upon a city girl who returns home to help her widowed father with his business, Santaville. When she returns home, she reunites with her middle school crush. To begin, they hate each other and eventually fall in love all over again, and once again they are love birds. Let’s be honest, relationships during the holidays never come out well. The holidays are fun, but they come with stress. When does one actually have time to maintain a new relationship, especially knowing being in town is temporarily not permanently? This end is definitely not a realistic spin on the holiday season.

The main character lacks the Christmas Spirit

Just like many Hallmark movies, The Christmas Parade, based on Haley Anderson, a television host, despises Christmas. Once she runs away to upstate New York to get away from her cheating boyfriend, Haley crashes into an important fence which belongs to the judge of the one and only Christmas town. While Haley is forced to stay in Christmas Town, she meets Logan, a bed and breakfast owner, who has a passion for art. As they begin to mingle, Logan wraps Haley into participating in the Christmas parade in hopes of saving the art center. As predicted, Haley ends up falling in love with Logan, as well as falling in love with Christmas.Just gotta love Christmas movies; only in a Hallmark Christmas movie, could the couple make the best of both worlds. Falling in love with a Christmas fanatic is pretty far off. I mean, the girl literally changed her personality in order to enjoy Christmas with her ‘prince charming’.

Boyfriend for Christmas

When children sit on Santa’s knee whispering their wish, they generally don’t wish for a daddy or for their mom to find a husband. However, in a Hallmark movie, the little kid will ask Santa for a new daddy or for mommy to have a husband which is a common occurrence in hallmark movies. Much like the Hallmark movie Hats Off to Christmas, Mia, a widowed mom with a crippled son, begins a new job at a Santa hat store. While she is working there, she meets Nic, the store owner’s son, ends up falling head over heels for mia.  With Mia being widowed, her son naturally misses his dad. As they go to the business Christmas party, mia’s son whispers in Santa’s ear “I wish for my mom to have a boyfriend”. Surprisingly enough, Nic ends up being in the Santa outfit, and of course Santa grants the wish and kisses mia under the mistletoe. Just like every other movie, the two couple end up falling in love. Movies like this frustrate me. For beginners, I haven’t heard of many children who ask Santa for a boyfriend for their moms. Also, there were kids at the Christmas party, why did Santa kiss a random girl? Where’s Mrs. Clause?

The peacefulness

There is no specific movie to describe this trait of a Hallmark Christmas movie because all of the movies consists of unrealistic peacefulness. Whenever the new couple is outside watching the snow fall, it’s peaceful. The annoying dog isn’t barking, not even a cricket.  What about the movies that take place in New York? The movie never adds in the obnoxious horns or squealing wheels or even other conversations. I’m sorry, but my Christmas is never that peaceful. When going out to get the last ingredients for the Christmas dinner, the streets are packed, the stores are running low on supplies, and the traffic is terrible. Not to mention the loud yapping dogs who are barking at the snow falling. It is never quiet during the holiday season.

Christmas is far from glamorous. The perfectly falling snow, the love, and the peacefulness is all unrealistic. Christmas is full of stress, horns, obnoxious drivers, and wasting money. Christmas is what we make it, but we can not control the weather, the presents nor the noise, but we can control our spirit and mind. Let’s make Christmas our own personal Hallmark movie.