Yikes. Has it really been over a month?

Ok, ok, I could give you excuses [Getting my wisdom teeth out, DIYing my apartment for Christmas, family visiting, LIFE!] ….or I could give you a nice list. List it is. You see lately I’ve been taking refuge in the most likely of places: Netflix. There is nothing better to help me unwind then a gripping, well written TV show or an overly dramatic preposterous made for TV movie.

Recently I have discovered the genre of Christmas Romantic Comedies and, whoa, can we say gold mine [It even inspired a game for some good Valentine’s Day Rom Com fun later next year]? In addition to all the antics of your normal rom com you get a dose of holiday cheer which makes things infinitely more zany and simultaneously heart warming. It’s fun to guess how they are going to take those classic tropes and make them Christmas-y (I just love doing this in general).

Movie people like to put a lot of pressure on Christmas. I personally love in Christmas movies of all kinds where they give you a grand speech to do things simply because it’s Christmas [Because truth and love and virtue only apply on holidays and expire once new years hits.]. You HAVE to tell the truth. It’s Christmas! Confess your love. It’s Christmas! Tolerate this annoying person. It’s Christmas! Buy me a sandwich. It’s Christmas!

So without further ado here is my ranking of Cheesy Christmas love movies** (On Netflix Instant) for your viewing pleasure:

*Keep in mind these are not the best Christmas love movies or even made for TV love stories. These are my rankings of the made for tv (or similarly devised) Christmas love movies that I’ve watched in the month of December. This is a very narrow genre. Within two lines of the first descriptions you should know if these shenanigans are for you.

4. 12 Dates of Christmas

The basics: For some reason I cannot fathom, two people: Kate [Amy Smart] and Miles [Saved by the Bell alum Mark-Paul Gosselaar], agree to a blind date on Christmas Eve. It (of course) does not go quite as planned or renew anyone’s faith in humanity, so when Kate wakes up she has to do it again! And again! Until she get’s it right. It’s a Christmas-y groundhog day if you will.

Despite shaking your head through the first few “dates” at Kate’s utter clueless-ness and self destructive behavior during the beginning of the movie you can actually relate to her. You start to feel better once she starts getting her act together and not acting like a crazy person. Although her accomplishments are not always quite what you’d expect from someone given the instant replay option (I can bake and decorate Christmas cookies now!).

3. Holiday in Handcuffs

The Basics: Melissa Joan Hart [Trudie]needs a man to impress her family. The successful and good looking Mario Lopez [David] [Another Saved by the Bell alum!] walks in. So naturally she decides to solve her problems by kidnapping the handsome stranger. Antics ensue.

Despite hate-HATE-hating Melissa’s hair (Perm gone terribly wrong) for the first half of the movie you get into the story and can’t help but wonder where they are taking the dynamic between these two. I mean are we rooting for Stockholm Syndrome? Is that ok? Oh wait my moral dilemma has vacated my head due to that unintentional smolder Mario Lopez just threw at the camera.

2. Desperately Seeking Santa

The Basics: Jennifer, a focused, dare we say cold hearted, marketing exec, needs profits to go up at the South Boston Mall so she devises a genius plan to have a Sexy Santa contest. What she doesn’t anticipate is her verbal sparring matches and utter contempt for one of the contestants. But Sexy Santa turns out to have a sexy heart! Ok, that was weak. But you get it! He’s adorable and actually a really good guy.

There’s also evil corporate entities, danger of foreclosure…and boy band dance moves? Yup, you heard right. Seriously though, this would have been a great follow up movie for Justin Timberlake after Model Behavior.

1. A Christmas Kiss

The Basics: Wendy has an amazing kiss in a freak elevator incident…only to discover the man is actually her boss’s boyfriend. And he doesn’t recognize her because she was dressed up for a fancy party!! Oh did I mention that her boss is a crazy, vain, demanding person bent on getting engaged??  [DRAMA]

I know what you’re thinking: This is just a non high school version of the  Cinderella story. Well it is, but I like it anyway. Side note: Hillary Duff would’ve been great in this role.

Here’s why you’ll want to watch this one:

• Sassy friends. So there is one girl who babbles on about fate and destiny while sighing romantically, but there is also that great sassy friend (This girl who’s an Grey’s Anatomy intern right now) who tells it like it is with classic sitcom-y attitude. Even better than her little quips is her good friend advice speech at the end where she says things that I would actually tell my friends. Well done.
• Rich people problems. I love seeing rich people habits in movies. The boss in this movie is priceless. Oh remember St. Barts? Oops I ruined my Monolo Blahniks! GET ME A CROISSANT.
• Brendan Fehr. Do I need to explain this? He’s that handsome former teen alien we all love. Or that charming young fellow on Bones if you are too old/young to be acquainted with the other worldy drama that was Roswell.
• Makeover! These writers learned from the life of Laney Boggs that you can transform a girl simply by removing her glasses and getting rid of that unfashionable ponytail. Except for instead of tweasing her eyebrows to finish it off in this movie they drown her in glitter (It’s the holidays after all).

My caveat with this movie is if it was that easy to get handsome strangers to fall in love with you girls would be sabotaging elevators left and right. All the tired of excessive PDA people would be forced to take the stairs everywhere. Of course, everything else in all of these movies is completely realistic and one of these meet cutes will probably be the way I meet my husband.

Up Next: All She Wants for Christmas. According to the Netflix summary this Christmas Rom Com centers around a woman who works as an “efficiency expert at the local Christmas ornament company.” An ORNAMENT company. How could should not find love in time for Christmas??? Still I’m willing to invest 1 hour and 34 minutes to find out.

Currently: knitting my little heart out. Christmas is near and I had this silly idea to make things (I’m actually quite on track. Knock on wood).