Choose Your Own Adventure: Hallmark Holiday Movie Edition

Be the protagonist in your own, totally original, Christmas special.

Welcome to, I Needed That, where writer Shelly Mazzanoble has one mission and one mission only: to make us laugh!

Do you fantasize about escaping to a quaint English countryside populated by humble royals who find American nannies utterly fascinating and super wifey? Have you ever paused your lifelong dream to make partner at a trendy, big city agency because the universe delivered three perfect, well-coiffed men all named Nick to fall in love with? Do you have the mental fortitude to wrestle your hometown’s beloved candy cane factory from the Burberry-gloved hands of a money-hungry, but hot as chestnuts roasting on an open fire, developer (also named Nick), in addition to planning the town’s annual gingerbread contest? Doesn’t matter if you answered yes or no, it’s Hallmark Holiday Movie Season and we could all use a little Christmas!

Yes, these movies are cheesier than the brick of Velveeta Aunt Doris puts in the scalloped potatoes, but that’s why we love them. The holiday decor! The satisfying endings! The sumptuous prop marshmallows melting in Lacey Chabert’s steaming mug of cocoa! Who doesn’t crave a slice of this pure cinematic merry magic?

Take a break from the holiday frenzy to cast yourself in a new light—or rather—a new movie. It’s the Jenny Hallmark Holiday Movie Plot Generator! Choose one bullet from each heading, do your hair up with some loose, beachy waves, throw a red scarf around your green peacoat, and ooh, ooh the mistletoe you’ll be top ho ho ho on everyone’s nice list this year! 

YOUR NAME IS:

• Holly
• Noelle
• Joy
• Eve
• Carol
• Kris
• Mrs. Claus

YOU ARE:

• A perpetually single, but optimistic woman who brings a fake date to your family’s annual holiday party so your parents will stop worrying about you dying alone
• A bitter, cynical, overworked professional with a cool apartment and power wardrobe who has no idea the holidays are even nearing because you’re too busy with more important stuff like finally making partner
• A naive, sweet, people-pleaser who knows deep inside you’re engaged to the wrong man, but doesn’t want to ruin his company party—or his chance to make a good impression on his new boss—by dumping him
• An agent of Mr./Mrs. Claus
• A VERY IMPORTANT BUSINESS LADY en route to a VERY IMPORTANT MEETING with a VERY IMPORTANT CLIENT who gets stranded in a small New England town due to a surprise snowstorm and is forced to spend the night at the Evergreen Valley Inn operated by a lovely couple celebrating their 45th anniversary and a single, blue-collar maintenance man who would be cute if not for the snide comments he keeps making about your city-slicker, luxe lifestyle 
• A busy single mom trying to get your holiday decorating business off the ground while raising three kids that look like they were rescued from a J. Crew catalog
• Royalty

WHO LIVES IN:

• A lovely little town with a name like Treetopper or St. Claus
• Manhattan
• A sprawling castle that hasn’t heard the sounds of children laughing for 1,700 years
• The sterile, industrial apartment belonging to your sterile, industrial fiancé 
• The charming home that once belonged to your grandparents
• An adorable bungalow that you haven’t had time to decorate because you’re too busy helping others find their holiday spirit
• The North Pole

WHO IS:

• Wishing you had someone special to spend the holidays with, but grateful to make the season merry for your friends and family
• Trying to take over a hometown/small business/candy cane factory
• Trying to save a hometown/small business/candy cane factory
• Trying to maintain a brave face in front of the kids even though you find the holidays insufferable
• Trying to infuse a little Christmas magic into the life of a perpetually single woman/a bitter, cynical, overworked professional woman/a naive, sweet people-pleasing woman/a busy single mom/an undercover royal/an entire town
• Misdirecting your grief over losing one or both of your parents/guardians at Christmas when you were a child and pushing everyone away, including your best friend’s cousin’s best friend who just moved back to town to care for his grandpa—the most important person in the world to him
• Returning to your hometown of Maple Falls to help your family run the maple syrup business—but only until your dad recovers from his sciatica 

SO YOU:

• Throw yourself into your work, hoping long nights at the office will give you the same comfort a pair of loving arms would provide
• Gift the hot, single new-in-town lawyer a dozen perfectly decorated gingerbread cookies and a wreath you threw together from the branches of a tree you planted in your mother’s memory, only to discover he works for the firm trying to turn the town’s candy cane factory into a strip mall
• Escape to your rustic-inspired, luxury-appointed, snow-covered cabin in the middle of nowhere to eat minestrone in the glow of your Excel spreadsheets while fielding calls from your mom and dad, who really wish you’d reconsider not coming home for Christmas while wondering who could be inhabiting the formerly abandoned hunting lodge a few yards away from you
• Fight the urge to dump your betrothed who still doesn’t share your love of the holidays in favor of the cute guy who just bought his orphaned niece and nephew a train set hand carved out of Brazilian Rosewood from the local gift shop owned by the affable, apron-wearing senior citizen who has a vested, but not intrusive, interest in your love life. (Oh, how your Grandfather Nick loved Brazilian Rosewood…)
• Leave a magical ornament in the path of a determined, hopeful, freckled child who needs to help his recently widowed single dad rediscover the Christmas spirit and fall in love with the pretty lady who works at the town’s candy cane factory and desperately wants to be a mommy
• Discover Nick, your high school nemesis, has started a competing catering company and just submitted a bid for the Winter Whimsy Snowman Holly Jolly Sugar Plum Silent Night Candy Cane Gala—the town’s biggest event of the year which you catered for the last seven years
• Pick a small American city, pack your Louis Vuitton suitcase and jovial lady servant, and go undercover because you’ve always wanted to live like a normie

WHEN SUDDENLY YOU:

• Spill a cinnamon mocha latte and the three dozen cupcakes you were bringing to the Christmas pageant rehearsal on a handsome, single man with a British accent and a luscious head of hair covered in puffs of snow as pillowy as homemade ravioli 
• Find yourself having inappropriate feelings for the man who is trying to take over your hometown/small business/candy cane factory. (It’s really his dad’s idea—he just works there!)
• Come across a holiday stigmata that reminds you of a wish you made at Christmas when you were seven years old, which didn’t come true because Santa is a joke and the holidays are a stupid reflection of our rampant commercial and capitalist overlords
• Feel yourself falling for your recently orphaned nephew’s charming, holiday-obsessed teacher who is directing the school Christmas pageant in between running the tree lot downtown and helping his beloved aunt run Kringle’s Diner, but suppress your feelings realizing how selfish you’re being since you’re only going to be in town for three days
• Are forced to identify your true self to a young orphan by pulling off several miracles so the dubious townspeople will regain their Christmas spirit and believe in love again
• Win a huge payout and a book deal after your What Christmas Means to Me essay wins the national writing contest your sister secretly entered you in, which you immediately donate to the town’s Save the Candy Cane Factory campaign
• Find yourself crying in front of a Christmas tree

WHICH RESULTS IN:

• Falling unexpectedly in love in a small town and gleefully giving up that superficial big-city lifestyle that was so unfulfilling
• Falling unexpectedly in love while saving your hometown/small business/candy cane factory
•  Falling unexpectedly in love while recapturing the Christmas spirit that vanished after your parents/guardian were tragically taken away when you were a child
• Falling unexpectedly in love and throwing a huge holiday party to apologize for the whole town you shunned/tried to destroy before a cute guy with a robust wardrobe full of a green flannel shirts made you realize the error of your ways
• Falling unexpectedly in love with a person who genuinely fell for you even before they realized you were a prince/princess and thanks to your jovial lady servant, harbors no ill will over the fact you lied to them about your true identity
• Falling unexpectedly in love with your old nemesis and pooling your savings to purchase the old candy cane factory where you’ll house your newly formed mega-event-hosting-and-catering operation 
• Helping a perpetually single woman/a bitter, cynical, overworked professional/a naive, sweet people-pleaser/a busy single mom/an undercover royal/an entire town fall unexpectedly in love

Looks like you’ll be adding “Save your family’s struggling maple syrup empire” to your to-do list.

Be sure to check out our past installments of I Needed That: Divorce Season Is Here and Can We Be Friends? That Time a MILF Moved Down the Street.

A version of this article was originally published on Shelly Mazzanoble’s Substack, Middle-Aged Lady Mom.

Want our stories delivered to you? Sign up for our newsletter, then follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Facebook for regular updates and a lot of other silliness.