Recipe For A Heartwarming Holiday TV Movie

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Today I thought I would share a laugh with you. While I have been working on projects over the past few weeks I've found it quite entertaining to have a holiday movie on in the background. Hallmark and Lifetime channels have been more than happy to oblige me in the evenings.

This is a comedic take on everything I have learned about what it takes to make a holiday TV movie over the past six weeks. A few necessary elements required:

1) A heroine- lovable but too headstrong (usually blond)

2) She either:

• lives in a small town & works for family business or
• went to the big city because she's too good for the small town & has come home for the holidays

3) Her rich, arrogant, jerk boyfriend/suitor (usually blond with a name like Steven Edward James III) - he always wants to take her away from:

• her small hometown or
• her family
• the job she loves or
• her kids' dad

so he can shower her with worldly goods and let her know all she's been missing in her simpleton world.

4) A potential dark haired suitor who is helplessly smitten by her. He is a kind, lovable:

• neighbor or
• lifelong friend or
• former military man
• and/or possibly a stranger who has suddenly appeared in town.
• Usually a manual laborer or someone who has left "success" for a simpler life who fixes things around her house and/or helps her with her kids or parents.

5) Her parents who are:

• big time meddlers or
• overly calm & full of wise advice or
• dead or
• being taken advantage of by some evil power often the evil boyfriend/suitor.

6) A proposal from Evil Suitor which she half-heartedly accepts

• always in front of a large crowd at his family's extravagant holiday party or
• her office party or
• at her family Christmas dinner
• and always in front of Kind Suitor

7) Her realization of true love with Kind Suitor often realized by:

• the holding of a candle
• singing of Christmas carols
• bad behavior by Evil Suitor as he asks her to marry him
• Kind Suitor leaving town on his motorcyle or by hitchhiking and
• her finally, finally realizing Kind Suitor has always had her back & loves her family

Throw in some B, C and D list actors and VIOLA you have a heartwarming holiday classic! Stay tuned, maybe another day I'll break down the "Family Divided" holiday movie where mom and dad are splitting up and the kids have to get them back together OR the kids are fighting and mom, dad and mischievous grandparents have to pull the family back together and save Christmas. Haa-haa. I kid, I kid.

Hope you're having a great day. I'm scrambling. Hope you have a very, very Merry Christmas!