It’s beginning to look a lot like… … a Hallmark movie, but with a dash of 2022-style anxiety By: Jen Zoratti Posted: 7:00 PM CST Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/12/2022 (695 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s been a year, people.

We’re navigating an awkward new normal. We’re dealing with a pandemic (still). Inflation, shortages, climate anxiety — it’s been… a lot.

The Hallmark Cinematic Universe, where it is always Christmas and the air smells of cinnamon and sugar, doesn’t concern itself with these kinds of problems. They favour the kind that can be wrapped up in a big red bow after a tight 90 minutes — except, truly, what is with all the widows/widowers in this year’s batch of movies?

But what if it did? As we did in 2020 and 2021, here we ponder what A Very 2022 Christmas would look like through the lens of Hallmark Christmas movies.

Disclaimer: This is satire so don’t email me asking where you can watch these movies — a thing that has happened (!) — because you can’t.

Christmas in Reverse

The popular meme becomes a movie! Camille is just a Christmas-lovin’ gal who enjoys peppermint mochas, festive matching jammies, having white teeth and really big scarves.

She and her husband, a lantern-jawed former quarterback named Luke, sold their condo in the city and moved back to his hometown during the pandemic for all the “quaint, cosy vibes.”

But when Camille is tasked with one too many impossible magic-making holiday deadlines, she does the unthinkable: she leaves Luke, burns all her festive matching PJs, moves back to New York City, and starts taking her coffee black, which is how you know she hates Christmas now.

Will she have her own Miracle on 34th Street, or has she left that peppermint mocha life — and, oh yeah, Luke — behind forever?

Single and Ready to Jingle

Kayla hasn’t been to an in-person office holiday party since The Before Times.

She’s nervous — she feels a little out of practice socially, especially when it comes to small talk, and she isn’t sure if she’s supposed to mask or distance or what.

But mostly, she wants to impress her co-worker Rick, on whom she’s developed a little crush despite never having met him in person.

His Slack banter is on point, though, so what could go wrong? (Things go wrong.)

Nutmeg and Chill

Heartleigh loves eggnog. She can’t get enough of the stuff. Her whole “personal brand” is eggnog, which is to say, rich and beige.

When Heartleigh hears of an impending eggnog shortage owing to ongoing supply chain snaggles, she begins hoarding as many cartons as possible — but Jake, the cute but shy grocery store manager, thinks she keeps coming by for him.

Will a love connection happen in the dairy aisle? Or is Heartleigh only nuts for the ’nog?

Marshmallow World 2: 2 Puffed 2 Stay Puffed

Last year, we met ​​hotshot restaurateur Jack Frost (again, not his real name) whose big-city concept eatery Ice (every dish was served on ice) was shuttered due to the pandemic, so he returned to his small town to revive Marshmallow World, a beloved dessert tour in his hometown.

Well, Frost is back, and has since turned Marshmallow World into an overpriced boutique that sells artisanal candy — despite having a name that suggests it is the kind of store that sells precisely the opposite — and he’s being hammered hard by rising costs.

Will he be able to hold on through the holidays? Or are things too puffed for Marshmallow World to stay puffed? (It’s about inflation, get it?)

The Last Christmas Tree

Nine-year-old Callie goes to sleep on Christmas Eve 2022, and wakes on Christmas Day, in the year 2060. The climate wars have begun, the oceans have risen, the sky is orange, and everyone coughs all the time.

Callie is dismayed to discover the Christmas tree farm that has been in her family for generations is now a dustbowl, but she finds a glimmer of hope in the form of a tiny balsam sapling that has been kept alive at a local conservatory by her future great-granddaughter — played by the same actress, obviously. (Wait, is this one good?)

Christmas for the Birds

If there’s one thing Greg loves, it’s a grand gesture. During lockdown Christmas of 2020, he decided to cheer up his wife Lisa with the ultimate grand gesture: getting her every gift from the classic Christmas carol The Twelve Days of Christmas.

When Lisa leaves Greg for one of the lords a-leaping — “it’s… it’s just too many birds, Greg” — he takes his swans, geese, French hens, calling birds, turtle doves and the partridge in a pear tree and creates a hobby farm that turns out to be the town’s only economic salvation post-pandemic (the partridge alone brings in bank).

Until, that is, a greedy developer comes to down and tries to, uh, buy the farm.

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com