Last year I watched a Christmas movie on November 6th.
I immediately felt full of the Christmas spirit and wanted that feeling of joy and hope to continue. So I watched another Christmas movie. And another and another and so on and so forth. Thus the 50 Christmas Movies in 50 Days Challenge was born! The plan was to average watching a Christmas movie once a day for a span of 50 days that would culminate with watching A Christmas Story on Christmas Day.
2020 has been a year where normal is not normal as we are living during a time of pandemic. So many people started putting up Christmas decorations earlier than ever before because they were looking to embrace that same joyous holiday feeling during a year that has been filled mostly with despair.
So how could I improve upon last years challenge? Not that bigger is always better, but the definition of a challenge is that it should be, well, challenging. Without a notion of a plan, I watched my first Christmas movie on October 27th. Quickly I realized that it was exactly 60 days until Christmas. And thus the 60 Christmas Movies in 60 Days challenge was born.
Last year I just one simple rule -- that I had to watch 50 Christmas movies in 50 days -- no more, no less. This year I expanded on that with just one more rule, which is more of a guideline. I want to try to not be more than 2 movies ahead (or behind) schedule. The rationale was that this was not about binge watching eight or 10 movies in a weekend and lapsing until the following weekend. This is because I want to embody the season on a daily basis, not in mass quantities and then lapse back into despondency or gloom for days at a time.
Last year I was scouring Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu and toward the end of the challenge the quality of movies was very poor. This year the quality of movies vastly improved as I invested in the frndly app which includes the Hallmark family of channels.
What are some observations for what comprises a Hallmark Christmas movie? It will contain 3 or more of the following scenarios.
- A successful business person working in the big city returns home and stays there to work
- Someone rediscovers the Christmas spirit after having a reason to be swear it off
- A single parent who had shied away from love, finds it again
- A famous country movie star returns to their home town incognito
- Some sort of festival, parade, fund raiser or holiday event needs to be planned and there is likely only a matter of weeks to pull it all off
- A kiss happens between the two main characters in the final 30 seconds of the movie, though they may have attempted to kiss earlier only to be interrupted
- A struggling small business in financial hardship is saved just in time for Christmas
- A young 30 something person is up for a promotion that they are far from qualified for at that age
- There is a snow storm that forces people to remain in town for longer than planned
- Will be filmed in Canada, but have a plot that includes New York City + (Vermont, Tennessee or Montana)
- Will feature a former child star, a soap opera actress or someone who has appeared on How I Met Your Mother or an extra on CSI including Candace Cameron-Bure, Lacy Chabert, Sarah Lancaster, Erin Cahill, Brooke D'Orsay, Ashley Williams, Brooke Nevin, Erin Krakow, or Rachel Boston
- There will be plenty of hot cocoa drank and seldom will there be alcohol
- It will only take (as many as) 12 days to fall in love, spanning the 12 days of Christmas
- Either a snow man or a snow angel will be made
- There will be a Christmas tree lighting ceremony
- There will be an inn or lodge that may be in financial hardship, be passed down in the family or have other sentimental value
- There will be a man who looks just like Santa Claus and may even serve as Santa for the town this season and you are lead to believe he is the real Santa but will mysteriously vanish on Christmas Eve, assumedly heading back to the North Pole to deliver presents
- Son inherits fathers company and either struggles to find himself in his fathers successful shadow or must pass a series of challenges to prove he is worthy of taking over.
- With their relationship in the budding stage, the lead female will uncharacteristically become clumsy and fall into the arms of the lead male and create an awkward moment in which they both realize that they are falling in love with each other and should kiss, but are preempted by the females former love interest.
Additions from collaboration with Gina DeMuro Zeafla
- There will be a misunderstanding approximately 20 minutes before the end of the movie which pulls the two love interests apart, leaving little time for the reconciliation and falling in love at the final scene.
- The frequent “impossibly beautiful but stubborn daughter trying to save her family’s farm or small shop from bankruptcy, only to be annoyed by the rich business man who came to most-likely develop the land.”
- Handsome widower with permanent 5-o’clock shadow and one bitter 11 year old daughter learns to love again after perky corporate climber is forced to come to small town to sell the family bed and breakfast after the death of her estranged father.
List of Movies Watched (so far)
- Day 1: Oct-27 Christmas in Evergreen: Tidings of Joy
- Day 2: Oct-28 Christmas in Evergreen
- Day 3: Oct-29 Chateau Christmas
- Day 4: Oct-30 'Tis the Season for Love
- Day 5: Oct-31 Christmas in Evergreen: Letters to Santa
- Day 5: Oct-31 Christmas Scavenger Hunt
- Day 6: Nov-01 Christmas Tree Lane
- Day 8: Nov-03 Nostalgic Christmas
- Day 8: Nov-03 A Blue Ridge Mountain Christmas
- Day 10: Nov-05 Rocky Mountain Christmas
- Day 11: Nov-06 Fir Crazy
- Day 11: Nov-06 On the Twelfth Day of Christmas
- Day 12: Nov-07 It’s Christmas, Eve
- Day 12: Nov-07 Small Town Christmas
- Day 13: Nov-08 A Merry Christmas Match
- Day 13: Nov-08 Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Sweater
- Day 14: Nov-09 Christmas in Love
- Day 15: Nov-10 Most Wonderful Time of the Year
- Day 17: Nov-12 Christmas at the Plaza
- Day 18: Nov-13 Christmas Connection
- Day 18: Nov-13 A Cookie Cutter Christmas
- Day 20: Nov-15 Miss Christmas
- Day 23: Nov-18 A Timeless Christmas
- Day 24: Nov-19 A Godwink Christmas
- Day 25: Nov-20 A Wish for Christmas
- Day 25: Nov-20 A Christmas in Tennessee
- Day 26: Nov-21 Christmas On Ice
- Day 26: Nov-21 Feliz NaviDAD
- Day 27: Nov-22 A Royal Christmas
- Day 27: Nov-22 Let it Snow
- Day 28: Nov-23 Christmas In Vienna
- Day 31: Nov-26 The Christmas Cure
- Day 33: Nov-28: Just in Time for Christmas
- Day 34: Nov-29: With Love, Christmas
- Day 34: Nov-29: Return to Christmas Creek
- Day 34: Nov-29: Holidate
- Day 35: Nov-30: Christmas Made to Order
- Day 37: Dec-2: Christmas Homecoming
- Day 38: Dec-3: Check Inn to Christmas
- Day 39: Dec-4: Northern Lights of Christmas
- Day 40: Dec-5: Sharing Christmas
- Day 41: Dec-6: Sleigh Bells Ring
- Day 42: Dec-7: Two Turtle Doves
- Day 44: Dec-9: A Godwink Christmas: Second Chance, First Love
- Day 45: Dec-10: Enchanted Christmas
- Day 47: Dec-12: A Godwink Christmas: Meant for Love
- Day 47: Dec-12: Christmas Next Door
- Day 48: Dec-13: Christmas On My Mind
- Day 48: Dec-13: Christmas Incorporated
- Day 48: Dec-13: Time For Us to Come Home for Christmas
- Day 51: Dec-16: Unlocking Christmas
- Day 52: Dec-17: Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen
- Day 53: Dec-18: The Sweetest Christmas
- Day 54: Dec-19: Christmas Waltz
- Day 55: Dec-20: Christmas Land
- Day 57: Dec 22: The Mistletoe Secret
- Day 58: Dec 23: Christmas Under the Stars
- Day 59: Dec 24: Project Christmas Wish
- Day 59: Dec 24: The Family Stone
- Day 60: Dec-25: A Christmas Story