Guilty Pleasure

Confession: I have been binge-watching holiday romance movies on Netflix for the past few weeks.  And not even the “good” holiday romance movies like Love Actually, The Holiday, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Last Holiday or even While You Were Sleeping.

Nope.

I’ve been binge-watching cheesy Hallmark channel style holiday romance movies.  You know, the ones that basically have the same story line with one or two minor plot changes, kind of like the Harlequin romances of movies.  It goes something like this: boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, some type of situation occurs that causes them to split up or be split up, boy and girl get back together, with boy usually proposing to girl by the end of the movie. True love reigns.

And the killer is, the movie story line usually takes place over a week or so. There is absolutely nothing “real life” about these movies, and yet I love them.  I eat them up like candy.  And, since I’m confessing here, I will also say that sometimes I’ll watch the same movie more than once. In case you’re wondering, some of my current favorites that have garnered more than one watch include:

• A Christmas Prince. The sequel comes out on November 30, and you better believe I will be watching it.
• The Spirit of Christmas. Kind of like a Ghost and Mrs. Muir story line, but set at Christmas time.
• The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. It has Fonzie in it  How can you not like a movie with Fonzie?
• The 12 Dates of Christmas.  Think Groundhog Day but in December, with a Christmas theme.
• Borrowed Hearts. One fake family coming up!
• The Princess Switch. Like Dave, but with a double romance. Basically two for the price of one.

I spent some time this week trying to figure out why I love these movies so much and I really don’t have a clear answer.  I’ve always loved the holidays, so that is probably part of it.  And there is something wonderful about watching a light, funny, romance movie that you know is going to have a happy ending – especially with all the not-so-wonderful things going on in the world today. They help me escape for a little while.

But I think the thing that I love the most is that they give me hope, as crazy as it sounds.  In spite of all the things that are ridiculously unreal in these movies, love always wins. There aren’t any broken hearts at the end.  As much as I love Love Actually, to this day I always feel bad for Mark (Andrew Lincoln), Karen (Emma Thompson) and Sarah (Laura Linney), because love doesn’t work out for them.

I know that things don’t always work out in life. Like everyone else, I’ve had my share of hurts and disappointments. But when I watch these movies, I know that in 90 minutes love is going to triumph.  And that is a beautiful thing.