In three words: Hallmark Christmas Movies. I’ don’t know where these small towns hail from, nor do I understand why everyone living in them is – well, so Hallmark-y. The men are desperately handsome, attentive, and humble multi-millionaires, and the women are hometown beauty queens turned interior designers looking for just the kind of man the small towns have to offer.
I’ve never been in a town where sleigh-bells ring as a horse drawn sleigh trots by carrying a family, all bundled in fur blankets and sipping hot cocoa, plus a Victoria’s Secret version of a golden retriever. I haven’t had carolers come to the door all dressed in vintage garb, smiling and blessing me. Never. Then there’s the whole romantic tragedy that ends up with a white wedding and well as a white Christmas. It’s amazing how quickly some people fall in love!
I’ve never know step kids to embrace new fathers with such abandon as the kids on these shows, nor have I known any man to have longed for just this child and mother to belong to him for eternity. Dreams come true in Hallmark Christmas movies.
Not that I find it all a tiny bit unrealistic or anything. It’s definitely how life should be, if we had our druthers. I mean, imagine coming back to your perfect home town looking younger and better than you did when you left. Imagine making a fabulous living selling cookies out of your very own cottage kitchen. Imagine discovering how your high school crush has been patiently waiting all these years just to hear the musical notes of your angelic voice. Imagine if you woke up tomorrow morning thin, fit, young, intelligent, well educated, long hair glistening in the sun, lashes like canopies over eyes of twenty-twenty vision and brilliant teeth nearly blinding as full lips part in a smile that captures the world.
Sigh. Christmas is a time of dreams. Hope some of yours come true in the New Year!
Later,
Mary Ann
