Christmas on TV: Speed-Watchers

My family's DVR has been filling up pretty quickly with me recording so many made-for-TV Christmas movies, so sometimes I have to choose which ones aren't worth spending two hours on (minus fast forwarding through commercials). Here are a few I recently watched on fast forward.

All She Wants for Christmas

Before the first commercial break, the main character trips over an inflatable snowman on the town square, it goes flying through the air with exceedingly bad CGI as she chases it all over town, and it lands on the car of her eventual love interest. The moment the snowman took off, I knew this was a Speed-Watcher. I watched enough to figure out that all the main character wants for Christmas is a tricked out stock portfolio, prestigious and high-paying job at the local toy company--and love. So of course she falls for the new-in-town blue collar toy factory worker who turns out to be a relative of the rich (translation: evil) family that is looking into shutting down the toy factory. When I watched the final scene and the main character is confessing how much finding love has changed her heart blah blah blah, I couldn't help my self from putting some words in her mouth: "I decided I don't need to make money on my own. I can marry into it just as easily." If you do catch it on TV, make sure you watch for a few seconds at least, though, since the main character is played by the actress who played Mary in While You Were Sleeping, only with blonde hair.

Deck the Halls (2005)

I'm embarrassed to say I watched nearly all of this one, especially since I was tempted to stop watching pretty soon into it. I think I kept watching because of Gabrielle Carteris from Beverley Hills, 90210. She wasn't actually a good enough reason to keep watching, but this one did have an ending that was easy to see coming in the middle of the movie but not what you would have guessed from reading the synopsis. There was even a part I watched twice: the horrible special effects that transformed her young bachelor neighbor into Kris Kringle himself. In sum, there were elves, there was a dog, the main character's name was Holly, and I've seen it all before. Also, there are several movies with this title, so be sure you're avoiding the right one.

Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus

On this movie, I fast-forwarded to all the parts where Steve Guttenberg is doing his awful Santa laughter. I do that every year just to remind myself how awful it is. Still bad.

A Different Kind of Christmas

Shelley Long's dad thinks he's Santa Claus. He has even memorized private information about the children in his neighborhood. Creeeepy! And that's pretty much where I stopped watching. Barry Bostwick also plays a major role, but nothing made me want to take the DVR out of fast forward mode, so I couldn't tell you how or why he and Shelley Long fell in love. There's a big Christmas tree on the town square at the end. The spirit of giving. Blah blah blah.