My Hallmark Life – Part I (the Ice Carving Contest)

The end of this year’s program of Hallmark holiday movies once again marked the beginning of my annual Hallmark withdrawal, and all of the damaging symptoms that attend it: the winter mopes, the no-sugar jitters, the waning of my Christmas spirit.  Every year it was the same.  January had become an unbearable month for me.

I had to figure out how to end this addiction.  How could I slowly resume my normal non-Hallmarked existence?  Was there a way to become an active, contributing member of society again?  I struggled with a solution.

After a few days of searching for an answer, it hit me: I didn’t want to be a member of normal society.  I wanted my life Hallmarked for sweetness year round.  How could I achieve it?  There had to be a way.  All I had to do was figure out the Hallmark formula and I’d be counting down to Christmas every day.

The Hallmark Formula

What was the Hallmark formula?  How did they do it year after year?  How did Holly Lodge survive rapacious corporate interests?  How did the Mistletoe Inn solve writer’s block?  How did an unemployed seamstress become a princess?  How did they hook me on their syrupy, saccharine plots time and again?  I had to know.

Only a detailed analysis of the movies could answer these questions for me.  I’d have to break them down, take notes on each plot and scene, copy out passages of dialogue, and chart the actions, interactions, and reactions of each character.  I would solve this.  All I needed was a DVR and a stack of sugar cookies – topped with red- and green-sprinkle Christmas trees, of course.

After hours of painstaking research, video after video, and a stack of notes, I retired to my lair to pore over my experiences and piece together the Hallmark formula.  It took several hours, and at least two glasses of egg nog sprinkled with nutmeg, for me to arrive at my Eureka moment.  Just to make sure, I reviewed my calculations from square one, and ate a hunk of holiday fudge followed by some peppermint bark.  It was true.  I had done it.  I had broken the code.

This was all I needed: two snowball fights a month; a mild misunderstanding following a half-overheard conversation, most likely weekly; one interrupted kiss per day; a love-filled trip on the Christmas train; a town filled with year-round Christmas spirit; a Christmas cookie bake-off; one magical snow globe; several trips to a Christmas tree farm; an intermittent ice carving contest; and a mysterious stranger who might actually be Santa Claus.

This would be too easy.  Or so I thought…

Putting It Into Practice

At six feet tall, the block of ice took up the entire corner of our garage.  I had stacked boxes of books eight high to create this frigid niche.  Kneeling beside it, I chipped away with my medium pickle fork.

“What are you doing with that block of ice?” asked my wife.

“I’m getting it ready for the big ice carving contest.”

She looked askance.  “What contest?  You’ve never carved ice in your life.”

“It wouldn’t be Christmas without an ice carving contest.”

“What contest?  Christmas was two weeks ago.”

“Exactly,” I said.  “This town needs a good, old-fashioned, ice carving contest to keep the Hallmark spirit alive.”

“Oh-kaaay.”

She leaned towards me, waiting for a welcome kiss.  I leaned back.  Our lips nearly touched.  I stopped.  “And it’s never too late to start,” I said.

Classic Hallmark interruption.

“You do that,” she said, perplexed.

She walked upstairs, two checkboxes ticked.

Keeping Hallmark Alive

After all my hard work, the ice carving turned into a chunk of melting abstract-expressionism.  Jackson Pollock may have been proud, but I would need more work.

If you have any suggestions as to how I can keep the Hallmark – I mean, Christmas – spirit alive, let me know.

Next week: a snowball fight.