'Tis the Season for Guilty Pleasures

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Holidays bring out all kinds of emotions in people. It also reveals everyone’s favorite holiday traditions. Whether it is the types of food people eat for Thanksgiving or Christmas Dinner, when you can start playing Christmas music (before Thanksgiving or not until after), how you hang your stocking or what decorations go on your tree, most people have something they must do every year.

As a child, there were certain holiday cartoons and movies that I had to see every year. It just wasn’t Christmas if you hadn’t seen How The Grinch Stole Christmas or Charlie Brown Christmas Special. I still enjoy those specials but as I got older, I found myself getting wrapped up on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon watching a holiday romantic comedy or family movie with a mug of hot chocolate.

12 Dates of Christmas (2011/ABC Family)

Before I knew it, this turned into my holiday guilty pleasure. I am particularly fond of the romantic movies you find on the Hallmark Channel, but I will also search out what movies are showing on ABC Family or Lifetime. Some years, I start early in the holiday season and watch a lot of them. Other years, I am lucky to catch the reruns between Christmas and New Year’s. This year, I started early, really early. Hallmark started running the movies at the beginning of November. I had to get over the fact that these movies started a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. Usually I wait until after Thanksgiving to start in on the Christmas movies. Not this year. 

The Christmas Ornament (2013/Hallmark)

What’s so special about these movies?

Christmas With Holly (2012/Hallmark)*

Everyone of these movies - funny or sad - are predictable. You know when you watch a holiday movie that it is going to have a happy ever after ending. When there is no guarantee in real life that there will be a happy ending, it is nice to know that the characters in the story will get their wishes fulfilled, or their damaged relationships repaired, or a new beginning. Sometimes, it is a bit of everything.

Twelve Trees of Christmas (2013/Lifetime)

Each of these movies make you smile, and laugh, and cry, and smile again.

Let It Snow! (2013/Hallmark)

And these movies remind us of simpler times, and small towns, and family, and what’s really important. They remind us that life goes on and that things can be good again.

Matchmaker Santa (2012/Hallmark)

Another thing I love about these movies, the actors and actresses are almost like old friends. I have often seen the same person playing Santa in more than one of these movies. Certain actresses will turn up as the mother or grandmother in several movies or the quirky wait staff/hotel owner/neighbor will appear in multiple movies. I even noticed the same music (and I am not talking about Christmas music) used in two of the movies.

Holidaze (2013/Lifetime)

As we lead up to Christmas and New Year’s, Thuy and I will be posting some reviews of our favorite Holiday Movies and Novellas. As we share some of our favorites, stop by and let us know what movies and holiday stories are your favorites and why?

Check out the upcoming movie schedules on the following channels:
Hallmark Holiday Movie Schedule:  http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/
It's a Wonderful Lifetime/Lifetime Holiday Movie Schedule:  http://www.mylifetime.com/movies/its-a-wonderful-lifetime
25 Days of Christmas on ABC Family: http://abcfamily.go.com/specials/25-days-christmas

*Random note from Thuy that Christmas with Holly is based on the book Christmas At Friday Harbor by Lisa Kleypas. You all know how much I love Lisa Kleypas. Therefore I recommend this one.