This year, Sean and I are getting on a plane pointed south for Christmas. We are fleeing snow and obligation and we’ll be sipping daiquiris instead of eggnog on a sandy, sunny beach.

This doesn’t really let us off the hook, though. Unwilling to forgo seeing our precious niece and nephew’s gleeful faces on Christmas morning, we’re hosting a pre-Christmas at our place before we leave. Sean’s birthday is in December, which means we’ll only have about a week between it and our little gathering to do the decorating, the baking, the shopping, the wrapping, the writing and sending of Christmas cards, cleaning the house finding the perfect tree, cleaning the house again of all the pine needles we’ve dragged in, the event planning. The event planning. Parties at our house aren’t some relaxed affair. They involve more courses than people, games with prizes, presents galore, and confetti cannons at the least. Luckily our jobs go on hiatus for the month of December. Ha. In fact, lots of jobs, including mine, go haywire for the holidays. And work brings its own obligations: office Christmas parties, and white elephant gift exchanges, and avoiding Linda’s fruit cake. So who among us couldn’t use the services of a Christmas consultant?

That’s what workaholic Maya (Caroline Rhea) figures when her new job is incredibly demanding, a dozen rogue relatives are on their way, and a big party has been promised in order to impress an important client. So she hires Christmas consultant Owen (David Hasselhoff) who oozes Christmas out his pores. He probably leaks Christmas carols out his butt. He grows tinsel out of his head. He’d really like to remove the reindeer antlers up Maya’s butt, but listen: she’s a working, harried mom trying to do it all and in swoops an obnoxious overgrown elf trying to mansplain her family’s Christmas to her. He’s getting lots of credit while also creating lots of havoc. Not to mention resentment, though come to think of it, resentment is kind of like a holiday staple. So maybe you should invite David Hasselhoff over for dinner this year. He can’t be much worse than your aunt Theresa.

Julia Wise is the Martha Stewart of the Hallmark Christmas universe. This year her producer, Maggie (Jessy Schram), is planning a live Christmas Special, but Julia and the network are worried that it won’t be the ratings draw they want and need. So Julia brings in her son, Danny (Chad Michael Murray), to co-produce. He’s stepping on all ten of Maggie’s toes, but she’s professional and intends to grin and bear it. Whatever it takes!

His first suggestion to improve the live Christmas Special is to pre-tape some segments. Catch that? Live TV. Pre-taped. Does not compute, right? So yeah, toe stepping accomplished, now they’re butting heads too. But as a compromise, they decide to cross the country filming Christmas oddities, like snowman relay races (you’ll have to watch to find out), and Maggie’s secret goal is also to assemble the Wise Men (ie, Danny’s brothers, who resent the Special and their mom’s Hollywood version of Christmas) for extra holiday cheer. But, you know, for the record – two can play that game.

Anyway, you’re never going to believe what’s about to brew between these two attractive competitors. And by “never believe” I mean that you’ll of course see it coming from the opening credits because Hallmark follows a strict formula from which is never deviates. Homogeneity is their brand. People who watch Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas want a white man to hold a white woman under the mistletoe after a brief and tumultuous courtship while the set decorators slap greenery on anything that isn’t moving. I bet the rest of us can find something more interesting to talk about.

What odd holiday traditions does your family observe? Maggie’s does a white elephant gift exchange that involves an actual white elephant. Growing up, we left Santa Doritos and daiquiris rather than milk and cookies because my Mom insisted that’s what he’d prefer, and she was right, because they were always gone. Growing up, my Mom’s family would do a Réveillon; her family would attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve, then return home to a big meal and gifts from Santa. Christmas day was spent going visiting, collecting people as they went, the soberest doing the driving, until the last house of the night had 30 guests all at once. Today we do a modified version, with the believers bundling off to church on the 24th while the rest of us stay behind to warm up the finger food and mix the drinks we’ll pass around once everyone gets back. No gifts though. Those are left for The Big Reveal on Christmas morning, when Santa has left a sea of unwrapped gifts – mine on the love seat, Jessie’s on the chair, with Jana and Tessa splitting the couch. It’s weird, but it’s tradition. What’s yours?

Noelle loves Christmas almost as much as she loves shoes. Although her official title is HR, she’s decorating and over-decorating the department store where she works in true holiday spirit – even though the store’s owner is not so big on the holidays.

Now, take some deep breaths because this next part is a bit nuts: Noelle (Candace Cameron Bure) gets locked in the store overnight, because they shut down early due to snow, and she doesn’t have a key. So she just gets left there! That’s clearly cooked up by some Hollywood psycho, because anyone who lives in a city who routinely gets snow knows that shit don’t get shut down for nuthin. But anyway, this suspension of disbelief is necessary, because how else will Noelle be visited by her guardian angel, Charlie (Jean Smart, WHOM I LOVE) who is here to reignite her passions. Through a pair of time-traveling shoes, she shows her a past Christmas when she should have made a different (better, smarter) choice, and an alternate Christmas from the universe where that good choice was made. But forget about career, happiness, success – she’s about to meet the man she marries in that alternate universe when she gets rescued and the vision dissipates. Darn!

Now, to be sure, even the title of this movie eats at my feminist sensibilities. But I’m doing some deep breathing to see beyond it. Ha. That’ll be a Christmas miracle.

Anyway, Noelle is back home in her normal, usual life, but Charlie has stuck around, and is encouraging her to see what’s possible – notably, by hanging out as much as possible with the hunky fireman who just moved in next door, Jake (Luke Macfarlane). Luckily, they’ve been paired to throw a charity ball. Christmas is just two weeks away, and these types of events are usually planned over a period of months if not a full year, but in the meantime, we’re going to enjoy watching these two lock reindeer antlers over the stupid, made-up things they argue over. Hollywood has such a fucked up notion of courtship. Charlie keeps throwing them together and Noelle keeps not playing along, but luckily she is easily fooled by a new pair of shoes, and the damn shoes keep sucking her into other possible lives. And somehow god gets pulled into this. Do not ask me how.

Anyway, the movie is light, flirty, and stacked full of actors who pronounce familiar “fermiliar.” Rhymes with “phertographer.” Except not really. Is this a weird American thing? Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I won’t be wearing any shoes this Christmas. Flip flops, maybe, but otherwise it’ll just be my toes in the sand or the waves.

Ellie is an amateur crafter and locally famous for her stunning Christmas wreaths. She works in the town’s bakery, known for its delicious Christmas Kringles pastries, where she mostly does her dad’s dirty work. When the company’s new, young CEO (also known as “Nick from corporate”) comes into town to inspect the bakery and learn its ins and outs, it of course falls to Ellie to train him. Of course, they’ve met previously, when he slipped on the ice and she put the bruise on top of his goose egg by knocking him in the head with her car door. Meet cute!

One thing Hallmark has taught me is that a surprising amount of CEOs are willing to get their hands dirty, taking extensive trips right before the holidays to see one small spoke in the business wheel. Layoffs are almost always threatened, but the spirit of the season usually (always) persuades them otherwise. Greedy CEOs have to learn to care. And think charitably. And embrace the season, of course.

Brooke D’Orsay and Daniel Lissing have mastered the trademark Hallmark fake laugh, slow walk, and sustained smile as the the scene dissolves to commercial. Ellie gets in Nick’s face about the importance of family at Christmas, not knowing that it’s his dad keeping him away, trying to train his son up to take over the reigns. Meanwhile, Nick has something he feels he can teach Ellie about business – namely, pursuing her crafts online to follow her passion. What will become of them?

Truthfully, I think workplaces are getting shittier and shittier about the holidays. I work as a suicide counselor, which means we work round the clock, every single day, on an emergency basis. We don’t get holidays off. We don’t get a party. We don’t get a bonus. My father used to bring home an actual turkey from his employer every year. Does anyone still do that? It feels that, Hallmark aside, most companies are moving away from holiday celebrations. Or has your CEO shown up lately to brush an egg wash on some pastry and throw $50 in a hat? In fact, I’m beginning to think that Hallmark movies, in addition to being not very subtle plugs for their products, are also backed by unions. Or has Christmas always been about bolstering the economy with a robust work force and hiring sprees?

Riley has $89 left to her name. She’s in desperate need of a job, so even though she’s over-qualified, she accepts a job acting as assistant to William Young, the young heir of a toy company. Within hours, she’s off to the airport to fly to the small town where a foundering factory is located. Young and his board of directors are thinking of shutting it down, but the whole town has gathered in order that it be saved.

Things are made extra awkward by the fact that William is a bit of a Christmas grouch. The town’s got its holiday cheer turned up to 11 for him, which is the exact opposite of how to win him over. Even knowing this, Riley’s answer to the town’s woes is to immerse William, against his will, in the town’s events, to make him fit in with the locals. Their shenanigans are of course observed by the local press, and the board isn’t happy with the image he’s portraying. Business is hard! It’s even harder when you’ve been keeping secrets, which Riley (Shenae Grimes-Beech) has. She’s not the person William Young thinks he hired. Don’t worry, that secret won’t squeak out until after he falls in love with her, so the betrayal will be doubled, nay squared, but drama is what we’re after. Where’s the fun in a love story that’s not fertilized generously by conflict?

So let’s brainstorm. There’s a sweet, smart assistant who may have misled some people about her true identity. There’s a handsome rich guy who hates Christmas but likes the girl who loves Christmas. And there’s a town who thrives on Christmas – at least until their toy factory disappears. Can Hallmark successfully juggle all these balls? Have no fear, they plug conveniently into the Hallmark formula and out tumbles the usual equation: Christmas is saved, love blossoms, happily ever after, blah blah blah.