A Fairy Tale Christmas is the story of an estate valuer named Bella staying at the villa of a grumpy attractive man who needs his books and property appraised. As coincidence would happen, this is their love story. Also, and this is just a sidenote, this all takes place in California so the image above is about 1000% more wintry than this entire movie.

Here’s a brief list of thoughts I had whilst watching this “Christmas” film.

This is an incredibly not at all veiled Christmas Hallmark redo of Beauty and the Beast, I think I should mention here that Haylie Duff’s sister Hilary Duff did a remake of the same story called Beauty and the Briefcase. I should note, in both cases the sisters play the role of “beauty”.

Belle just gave bra-cup money to the bell-ringers. I literally know no women who have bra money.

Gaston has just showed up. He’s oily. His name is “Tony”. Like “Gaston-y”. Gastony is terrible, and his suit is shiny which is actually kind of the same thing. Gastony’s really gross. Like men who talk about women as commodities gross.

Quick everyone, what’s the correct response to Belle’s discomfort with Gastony when she says “he’s not really my type”? If you didn’t say “why don’t you just go out with him.” Then you’re already a better person than her FATHER.

Stock footage of vineyards. And our “Beast” morosely wandering about. He’s attractive, athletic, and serious. WHAT A MONSTER.

Stock Christmas music is playing to remind you that even though there’s no reason this has to be a Christmas movie, it is dammit.

“You don’t want to go there, Missy.” Ahh small town patronizing misogyny from the diner owner. How quaint.

“I’d prefer it if your father were here.” Says our charming Beast. It’s actually kind of astounding the diner owner doesn’t like this guy.

Oh he’s a beast because his fiancée died. Okay. I like how Hallmark movies have real life tragedies that they mostly gloss over to get to the Christmas decorations.

Shirtless beast. Can’t sleep without his snuggle buddy “Beast” which is the name of his dog. To avoid confusion I’m going to refer to dog beast as “furry beast”.

Oh Beast is still shirtless to go running through the vineyards. This is yet another sign he’s moody and dark: silent vineyard running. Non-hairy beast is independently wealthy and apparently “just travels the world”, one assumes by running. He is the perfect man: wealthy, idle, in shape, attractive. Sure, he’s sullen and rude. But one can’t have EVERYTHING.

Non-hairy beast just gave Belle a really angsty look. Love is in the air. OR indigestion. No fooling, you could really rework this movie as an ad for Pepto-Bismol. Or Viagra. “Are your morning shirtless jogs the only exercise of your stamina these days? Has it been years since you’ve been able to be close to a woman, you know, in THAT WAY? Do you just gaze at them from afar with sad eyes and then go running again shirtless in the vineyards? We have the drug for you.”

Belle just quit. Apparently it’s because non-hairy beast is rude, but I’m pretty sure it’s because he’s finally wearing a shirt again and she sees it as a step backwards in their blossoming relationship. She better not accept an apology unless he shows up in only his underwear.

Uh-oh, he’s headed to apologize fully clothed. Somehow the apology worked anyway.

Ew Gastony just told Belle he’d buy her the New York Public Library. Which is concerning on several levels, not least of which is his incomplete grasp of how buying and selling things works.

And now it’s furry-beast out for a morning jog. Shirtless, of course, but also pants-less. He’s so much more intense than non-furry beast.

“I would love to be a rare book dealer one day.” Belle says. To which our wealthy out-of-touch hero says, “you should do it!” “It’s a banana, Michael, what could it possibly cost – ten dollars?”

His grandparents met at the library?? How cute is that? Where is that movie?? I would 100% watch a movie about teens meeting in a library. Maybe they could sing Marian, Madam Librarian to each other.

“Forgot to feed Beast” the hero chuckles. Always funny when your dependents go hungry because you’re off day-drinking in the vineyard.

“So you believe there’s a “right one”?” he asks, meaning a soul mate. To which she replies, “Of course, what girl doesn’t?” And then IMMEDIATELY falls over while walking, naturally he follows her down for reasons. I don’t know. An earthquake maybe? Or the dead fiancée’s ghost sending a message?

See now this is the problem with dating someone in your employ. You start “readjusting time frames” to accommodate late night dates at Christmas festivals. No one takes business seriously, she starts cuddling your dog, rearranging the solarium, drinking your wine in your vineyard. Where’s the boundaries of a healthy relationship? What is she charging for or not? Who’s whoring themselves out to whom in this situation??

And now non-furry beast just told her she needs to set some boundaries with her dad. Non-furry kettle, meet pot.

He literally said he was going to throw a Christmas party so that people would “assume we’re each other’s dates for the night.” Which is so sad. This guy deserves a Hallmark movie.

Slow motion tree decorating is happening. It’s so disturbingly sensuous. This is the movie for anyone who thinks I’m kidding when I talk about erotic tree decorating. It’s 100% a kind of foreplay in the Hallmark world.

Oh dear, he’s reading the entire “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” poem to her from a “book” he made when he was seven. For a rare book dealer, she’s distressingly charmed by this. Wow she fell asleep while he was reading the poem. Amazing. To be fair, I was kind of nodding off there as well. I can’t stress this enough, Belle loves books. Loves them. Unless someone opens them and starts reading them. Ugh. BORING.

It is really really, difficult to sell a Christmas movie in California. The sun is shining, people are wearing shorts…so we have to rely almost exclusively on santa hats to affirm this is Christmas.

Barn remodel scene! Almost exclusively done by volunteers while wearing what I’m assuming is the volunteers’ uniform of…Santa hats.

Obligatory ‘it’s beautiful” from the heroine, taking in the Christmas decorations, as the hero looks at her from the corner of his eye and agrees.

Distressingly long make out scene from the barn to the living room interrupted by Gastony who gets worse and worse by the minute. And non-furry beast just ignores literally everything she has to say. My vote is she marries no one and rides off into the sunset on her own.

Ooh good, she’s laying into her lazy father. Love it. More of this. Stick up for yourself, woman! Go specialize in rare books! Go make out with estate sellers in their living room! Steal their dogs! Live the dream!

Sidenote: Always watch movies with captions, you get some interesting info. For example, right now “Techno Christmas music” is playing. Without captions I wouldn’t have known what to call this music that eats the soul.

“Don’t let tonight be the biggest regret of your life.” Non-furry beast is admonished. I guess it’s possible to regret more being kind of rude to a girl you made out with once than losing your fiancée tragically.

Gastony: “I drove all the way up here, I think you owe me a moment.” What a douche canoe. He’s exceptionally well-cast. I expect him to be a romantic lead in another Hallmark movie sooner or later.

She is also wildly overdressed for a barn dance. Or a Senior prom.

She just told Gastony “I love you as a friend” and I just find that impossible to believe. There’s literally no positive quality to associate with him. Nothing remotely friendly. And he just forced several kisses on her, which our hero somehow? Took as consensual and is now mad at her about.

This movie has gone dramatically off the rails in the last five minutes. She definitely needs to get a break from men.

Watching the hero and heroine run toward each other Gastony just rolled his eyes and said “Oh God” disdainfully which is the single most relatable thing in this movie. Because what the hell, non-furry beast just proposed to Belle after knowing her for several days and she accepted. That’s it. I’ve lost all respect for her. You’re on your own, rare book collectors. I can’t help you.

 

On a certain level I understand that a Hallmark Christmas movie hinges on Christmas being a vitally important holiday that is appreciated, acknowledged, and celebrated — with bells on. But if your only exposure to film was Hallmark channel movies, you’d really have a very terrifying perspective on the absolute necessity of specific Christmas rituals, rites, and saccharine sweet antics.

Finding Father Christmas ticks all the boxes and then some. In a story about a young woman who hasn’t felt up to celebrating the holiday since her mother died during a Christmas play when she was a young girl, this movie needs to make up for any and all lost time. Here’s a short chronicle of the almost cultish obsession displayed with this holiday:

• Christmas town — You can’t convince me this isn’t a gimmick the producers thought up. A Hallmark Christmas town is essentially a ceramic Christmas village come to life, but instead of that weirding everyone out, they’re happy to live in the snow globe (that’s, by the way, the basis of a totally different Hallmark movie).
• Tree lighting tradition — Okay, this is a tradition in some places in the world. But can we all agree, this is not a “Christmas necessity”. It’s a fun light show. You could get a better display from a Pink Floyd concert.
• Gift baskets — I haven’t seen this one before, but basically our love interest’s family has unlimited wealth which is amply displayed in giant pinterest type gift baskets that are given out to the townspeople. And given the off-camera shriek of one of the recipients, it’s the highlight of the year. But honestly, what happened to just mailing out Christmas cards? Isn’t that enough effort??
• Horse drawn … cart — Yeah, you gotta have a sleigh — or something like a sleigh — pulled by reindeer — or something like reindeer…anyway it’s romantic to go on a ride in an open air vehicle in the winter with a lap blanket and a man wrapped around you. It’s really the only valid excuse for public groping we’ve come up with as a people.
• White Christmas — I think we can blame several earlier movies for this Christmas necessity. But ever since I could drive I’ve been baffled by the trope. It’s a huge travel day and everyone is thrilled that now the road is an obstacle course with hidden death traps. Happy holidays from the ditch, friends.
• Christmas eve tradition — The insistence with which people stress “we ALWAYS do this on Christmas eve” had me thinking that maybe it was something major. Like ritual sacrifice. I’d even have settled for a yearly ritual burning of the Elf on the Shelf.
• Christmas day tradition — In case you weren’t feeling boxed in enough by expectation and history, there’s a Christmas day tradition TOO. Not church though, I noticed. I’m not sure yet if the overt religious themes are being weeded out entirely, but they’re certainly being nixed in favor of what I’m going to term “Christmas religion”.
• Christmas religion — At some point in the movie someone will be wondering what all this Christmas fuss is about. Why the gift baskets? The lights? The tree? Why is everyone so blessed happy? It’s at this point that our Christmas pro (who probably has a gift wrapping room at the Christmas cottage) gives a small tutorial on “the reason for the season”. It’s not Jesus. It’s “loving people” “life” “taking time for the small moments” “spending time with those you love” “letting people know you love them” “sharing with others”. Honestly, it’s whatever sermonette our heroine has been struggling to grasp for the previous hour+.

My advice is if your own Christmas is lacking in the experience of any of these tropes, watch this movie. You get the vicarious experience with 100% less of the glitter and inevitable family fallout. ALSO This is the first in a series of three. So. There’s so much more to look forward to?

At some point in my young human life my mom dressed me up for Halloween as a bunch of grapes. I remember being surprised to discover that I was not the only person to ever experience this necessity being the mother of ingenuity costume design.

Honestly, in hindsight and because I really can’t remember if it was at all awkward running around swathed in a cloud of green balloons, it’s one of my favorite costumes.

Not that I wore a lot of them over the years.

A lot of women experience “imposter syndrome” in their adult work life, but I’ve taken it to the next level I think in not wanting to masquerade as anyone but me in most aspects of life – including on Halloween.

But in all honesty, I’ve pretty much always assumed that for women after puberty all costumes must be slutty, and rebelled accordingly, mostly by not wearing them, but also when I did wear a costume, invariably I’d dress as a man.

There was the year I borrowed my dad’s fatigues (not the blood-stained ones) and boots. The bonus to this was that I could wear long underwear underneath. I was probably the warmest person walking around outside in a costume that October.

For my senior year and the class masquerade I decided to go as an old-timey reporter, complete with fedora and one of my dad’s suits from the 70s (that honestly fit me alarmingly well).

I still can’t fathom the rationale of wearing less clothes at the end of October than you’d normally wear in the middle of summer. It’s never made sense to me. Nor have I understood the “excuse” or opportunity to dress scandalously in the name of…what? Pretending to be someone you’re not? Or having the excuse to be someone you’re not?

I suppose it’s not surprising that a lot of women will seize the opportunity to be sexy under the guise of Halloween fun, but I suppose it’s almost a little sad then that in the heights of fantasy and imagination I sought the freedom and power of dressing up in my father’s clothes.

After all, if you’re never going to be a tough soldier, at least for a night you can look like one.

And maybe I was never going to be a hard-boiled reporter tackling the most important stories of the day, but I could dress like one for an evening.

That’s a lot of pressure to bring to a costume, isn’t it? Picking something to change the way people see you, or to become finally the self you wanted to be.

Makes me think maybe kids are really on to something with their costumes. Like the year I was a red crayon. I can’t tell you why I was a red crayon, and honestly, does there need to be a reason? I was a red crayon cause I could be (also maybe I’m a little addicted to costumes with hats, huh).

Anyway, this Halloween maybe do yourself a little favor with your seasonal prep and think outside the box like a kid. Go as static cling, or a globe, or a dinosaur – and not a sexy one, just a rad one. (Ps, I’m not going to post a link to it here because ew, but I did find a sexy dinosaur costume after a terrifyingly brief google search. Sigh.)