{"id":8695,"date":"2024-12-11T11:26:30","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T16:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stripedpineapple.com\/?p=8695"},"modified":"2024-12-11T11:26:30","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T16:26:30","slug":"my-life-is-a-hallmark-movie-backwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stripedpineapple.com\/?p=8695","title":{"rendered":"My Life Is a Hallmark Movie…Backwards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahhh, Hallmark movies. Who doesn’t love a\u00a0 heartwarming, incredibly cheesy and predictable, snowy movie to kick off Christmas? Pretty much every Hallmark movie is exactly the same; big-city corporate\u00a0 girl comes to the small town on an ambitious war path, ready to construct that high-rise or expand that business or write that news article, all at the expense of the charming little family business, of course. She meets the small-town bumpkin in some adorable way, both reaching for the same pastry at the inevitable coffee shop run, or running into each other in the street, or getting stuck on the snowy highway and needing help from the burly handyman who happens along. They hate each other, then they love each other, all usually within the unrealistic span of a few days or weeks, and the big-city hard heart is softened and she rediscovers the true meaning of Christmas and buys a Christmas tree farm, abandoning all her corporate dreams. Or something like that.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite iterations of a Hallmark movie is when Keaton Patti<\/a> made a bot watch 100 hours of Christmas movies then write its own. This is what it came up with.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hilarious, right?<\/p>\n

Of course we all know these movies are incredibly cheesy and predictable, but that’s part of their charm. You never have to wonder who the bad guy is, or which character is suddenly going to turn into a villain. Nobody is going to die, most likely, and soon as you’ve watched the first five minutes you know just how the film will end. Every town is decked out to the max in Christmas splendor, and all the people ever do is go to cookie decorating competitions and host parties and give toys to homeless children. If they have jobs, they’re the artistic kind that realistically earn about $9 an hour, but somehow they still live in big, beautiful houses with (presumably) all their bills paid. It’s highly comforting to watch, and seeing how they’re all pretty much the same, it doesn’t matter which one you choose.<\/p>\n

My friends and I like to find the stupidest ones we can to watch together, and roll our eyes at them the whole way through. If you’re into that kind of thing, I think the worst one we’ve found so far is “The Christmas Wedding Planner,” in which the couple gets married after approximately 2 days together. Sooooo realistic, right?<\/p>\n

Except wait, maybe the premise of all these movies actually\u00a0is<\/em> realistic, just in reverse. Take, for instance, my life.<\/p>\n

Small-town girl lives above a music shop in the heart of downtown with her best friend, with whom she also works. They go for walks in the snow, have a tradition of gingerbread pancakes with cookie butter on Saturday mornings, make runs to the next-door coffee shop on Saturday afternoons to hang out with community folk, and participate in the annual holiday Bed Races held on the main street of the small town. Girl is introduced to a local nun and volunteers at the weekly free clinic with her. But somehow, the girl gets it in her head to leave behind her small-town life and move to the big city.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Girl packs up her life and moves to the big city, working first for a medical office, then for a bankruptcy firm, where she goes to work daily in a high-rise in the heart of the skyscrapers. Through many twists, turns, and a global pandemic, girl ends up working for a large non-profit, where one day the choir director introduces a new member to their award-winning choir with the preface, “Isn’t he cuuuuute?”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

First, the girl disdains him, as they chat backstage during a Christmas production and he says he doesn’t like eggs. Eggs being the primary component of girl’s diet, she dismisses him entirely, as she could never marry a picky eater. Enemies (not really) turn quickly to friends over a concert they sing at together. He calls her Krispy Kreme as a joke, she suspects he likes her, and so begins the journey of small-town girl falling in love with big city guy. And not just any guy, but a singer who is also a fancy corporate drug dealer<\/del> pharmaceutical sales rep.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Eschewing her small town life forever (or perhaps not), girl marries big city guy and they invite the whole land to the large celebration.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sure, it took us three years to marry instead of three days, but still… All that is really left for me to complete my reverse Hallmark journey is to forget the true meaning of Christmas and spend Christmas Eve hastily churning out work to meet deadlines for my stringent boss. I suppose I should find a stringent boss too, while I’m at it. And perhaps destroy a small family business. But I’m getting there! Hey Hallmark, want to make a movie out of my life? \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You might also like…<\/h3>\n

My Hallmark Christmas<\/a><\/p>\n

A New York City Christmas<\/a><\/p>\n

Christmas Alone, an Experiment<\/a><\/p>\n

A Handel’s Messiah Train Wreck<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All that is really left for me to complete my reverse Hallmark journey is to forget the true meaning of Christmas and spend Christmas Eve hastily churning out work to meet deadlines for my stringent boss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[92],"tags":[597,661],"class_list":["post-8695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","tag-hallmark-christmas","tag-hallmark-movie-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.stripedpineapple.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/pexels-vladimirsrajber-29689569.jpg?fit=%2C","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8A8kG-2gf","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8052,"url":"http:\/\/www.stripedpineapple.com\/?p=8052","url_meta":{"origin":8695,"position":0},"title":"My Hallmark Christmas","author":"Rachel","date":"January 21, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I never had a white Christmas. 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