The name “Hallmark” has always meant greeting cards to me, and I like their Shoebox line of cards, some of which are funny:
So, buy funny Hallmark cards?
Yes.
Watch Hallmark TV stations?
No.
I’ve never watched either Hallmark station, designated HALL and HALLMM in my TV book, the latter standing for “Hallmark Movies and Mysteries.”
I’ve suspected that the movie plots would be so saccharine they’d send me into sugar shock, like so many non-Shoebox Hallmark cards do:
Back to the Hallmark TV stations, and why I’ve avoided them.
In addition to saccharine, I also suspected the movie plots would be repetitive, trite and boring.
To confirm or deny this, I did the gird-your-loins thing, visited the Hallmark TV website and read a few plots:
Confirmed, as predicted:
So when I’m perusing my TV book, my eyes normally skip right over HALL and HALLMM.
But last week, something did catch my eye:
My calendar says it’s summer. The weather says it’s summer. Yesterday was July 4.
Doesn’t all that just scream…
A bit of research revealed what Hallmark is doing:
In a similar article, the writer – no stranger to saccharine herself – said,
“Now that summer is here, it’s a little disheartening to know that days filled with Christmas cookies, gingerbread houses, and tree decorating are so far away. Luckily, Hallmark has a solution for the post-holiday blues: Hallmark Channel is now airing Christmas movies year-round, so you can catch one every Thursday and Friday of the year.
“…I’m especially looking forward to escaping reality with a festive Christmas movie each week.”
But – how can Hallmark come up with so many plots for so many Christmas movies?
Additional online research revealed that a goodly number of people have also girded their loins, watched HALL or HALLMM, and tackled this topic. It appears that Hallmark doesn’t concern itself with originality, and I think this writer nailed it:
Here are the seven plotlines:
- Deceased Parent Leads to Other Parent Needing Help from Child, Which Leads to a Love Connection
- Over-Worked Child Plans to Skip Christmas, But Gets Fired and Must Return to His/Her Parents, Which Leads to a Love Connection
- Big City Man Travels to Small Town Christmas Place to Destroy It in the Name of Big Business, Falls in Love Instead
- Cold-Hearted Man Hates Children/Animals But is Forced to Care for Children/Animals at Christmas, Needs Help from Neighbor/Co-Worker, Which Leads to a Love Connection
- One Down-On-Their-Luck Person Receives a House/Land from a Distant Relative, but So Does a Real Estate Developer/Lawyer and Though They Don’t See Eye-to-Eye, They Will Learn Love Through Remodeling this Free House
- Bad Attitude Non-Christmas Person Reunites with Old Flame Through Very Unlikely Circumstances and Falls in Love
- A Person Going Through a Bad Breakup Must Also Keep the Breakup from Their Parent/s, Which Leads to Hiring Someone to Play Their Former Flame
But just in case Hallmark does decide to try some new plots, another online wit created this – I promise this will be more fun that actually watching a Hallmark movie:
I Hate Houseguests 