The Other Side of Hallmark
Okay, I admit it. I like those sappy Christmas Hallmark movies. I like to imagine that some winter night when the snow is falling, I will be relaxing on my sofa in front of the crackling fire, in my designer outfit with perfect hair, nails, makeup and heels, enjoying my gorgeous spacious, immaculately clean and spectacularly decorated home. You knock on the door. You also look amazing in your new Armani coat and Jimmy Choo boots. I serve you a half-gallon sized mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream and we chat about whether you should continue to date your impossibly rich and handsome boyfriend or the even handsomer down to earth guy who will soon be rich because his homemade puppy food business is going to be a sensation. Hard decisions.
All this is easy to believe because it’s exactly like my real life (during REM sleep). But then I watched “Jingle Bell Bride” and I just couldn’t swallow the story. Literally every scene had me going, “but…” NO, but…” Read on at your own risk. I’m going to ruin the illusion of this one movie in the hopes that my brain will back off and let me enjoy all the rest of these shows as the realistic portrayals of life that they are.
Here we go--our heroine, Jessica, is flying to a remote Alaskan village on a tiny cargo plane to find a special flower for a Christmas wedding. The airport that services this plane has a fully decorated tree at least 20 feet tall, garland on the stairs and a working vending machine. I wonder idly, how many trips the little plane made to bring in all those decorations, and how much the heat bill is since this is an awful lot of high open space, but with an effort let it pass.
On the way into town there is a permanent sign announcing the population as 129. The part of me that has read some dystopian fiction is worried. How do they keep the population so rigidly controlled? If a baby is born, must someone else be eliminated? How exactly is this taken care of? I firmly stomp down such non-Christmas spirited speculation.
Of course, our heroine gets stuck and the hero takes her to his own …. Suffering Santa! This home is HUGE! Are all homes in the Alaskan outback the size of ski resort lodges? Yes. Plus, there are attractive shops, a gazebo and at least two venues large enough to host dances for the 100-plus people. The cost for heat and light must be astronomical. And where did all these decorations come from? It must have taken a couple of aircraft carriers.
I think what happened is this: about 70 years ago a group of eccentric billionaires settled in this remote location. Wanting all of the luxuries of home, they did indeed have aircraft carriers bring everything in. Rather than cut timber or mine for coal, they build a secret nuclear reactor deep in the forest to generate heat. This is how the whole town is powered. It’s why the small armload of wood our hero brings in is plenty for the whole weekend. It’s also why the news can announce four feet of snow in the evening, but the sidewalks are clear in the morning without any ugly snowbanks made from the plows.
Unfortunately, the black-market scientists who built the reactor must have cut a few corners, because there’s obviously been some kind of leak. That’s the only way to explain the odd memory loss the people are suffering. One lady can’t remember if our heroine was at the last Christmas dance. In a town of just 129 people? Also, there’s a child who can’t find middle C on the piano despite hours of practice. Middle C? Really?
There are many more problems in the show, but the children’s snowman activity with all the perfectly shaped snowmen, is totally believable if you assume that all the kids brought calipers to the party.
You’ll be glad to know that I figured out the population problem. Somewhere, there must be a giant warehouse filled with permanent street signs numbered from 1 to a couple hundred thousand, so they just replace the entire sign as people come and go. Nobody thinks this is strange because everybody’s mind is warped by radiation poisoning. The bad news is that the radiation must somehow leaking through my tv. It’s the only explanation for why I keep watching these movies.
All this is easy to believe because it’s exactly like my real life (during REM sleep). But then I watched “Jingle Bell Bride” and I just couldn’t swallow the story. Literally every scene had me going, “but…” NO, but…” Read on at your own risk. I’m going to ruin the illusion of this one movie in the hopes that my brain will back off and let me enjoy all the rest of these shows as the realistic portrayals of life that they are.
Here we go--our heroine, Jessica, is flying to a remote Alaskan village on a tiny cargo plane to find a special flower for a Christmas wedding. The airport that services this plane has a fully decorated tree at least 20 feet tall, garland on the stairs and a working vending machine. I wonder idly, how many trips the little plane made to bring in all those decorations, and how much the heat bill is since this is an awful lot of high open space, but with an effort let it pass.
On the way into town there is a permanent sign announcing the population as 129. The part of me that has read some dystopian fiction is worried. How do they keep the population so rigidly controlled? If a baby is born, must someone else be eliminated? How exactly is this taken care of? I firmly stomp down such non-Christmas spirited speculation.
Of course, our heroine gets stuck and the hero takes her to his own …. Suffering Santa! This home is HUGE! Are all homes in the Alaskan outback the size of ski resort lodges? Yes. Plus, there are attractive shops, a gazebo and at least two venues large enough to host dances for the 100-plus people. The cost for heat and light must be astronomical. And where did all these decorations come from? It must have taken a couple of aircraft carriers.
I think what happened is this: about 70 years ago a group of eccentric billionaires settled in this remote location. Wanting all of the luxuries of home, they did indeed have aircraft carriers bring everything in. Rather than cut timber or mine for coal, they build a secret nuclear reactor deep in the forest to generate heat. This is how the whole town is powered. It’s why the small armload of wood our hero brings in is plenty for the whole weekend. It’s also why the news can announce four feet of snow in the evening, but the sidewalks are clear in the morning without any ugly snowbanks made from the plows.
Unfortunately, the black-market scientists who built the reactor must have cut a few corners, because there’s obviously been some kind of leak. That’s the only way to explain the odd memory loss the people are suffering. One lady can’t remember if our heroine was at the last Christmas dance. In a town of just 129 people? Also, there’s a child who can’t find middle C on the piano despite hours of practice. Middle C? Really?
There are many more problems in the show, but the children’s snowman activity with all the perfectly shaped snowmen, is totally believable if you assume that all the kids brought calipers to the party.
You’ll be glad to know that I figured out the population problem. Somewhere, there must be a giant warehouse filled with permanent street signs numbered from 1 to a couple hundred thousand, so they just replace the entire sign as people come and go. Nobody thinks this is strange because everybody’s mind is warped by radiation poisoning. The bad news is that the radiation must somehow leaking through my tv. It’s the only explanation for why I keep watching these movies.