My Life is a Hallmark Movie. Sort Of.

One of my guilty pleasures is watching Hallmark movies with my mom. It’s what we do together. I’m pretty sure my mom pays for cable just so she can get the Hallmark channel. Any time I visit the answer to “what should we do tonight?” is always, “is anything good playing on the Hallmark channel tonight?” Sometimes she even tapes the movies for me. You know, ones that she thinks I really need to see. Like, “A Princess for Christmas.” Obviously.

The movies always have a happy ending, and are guaranteed to never give me nightmares. They allow me to spend a couple of hours in happy-land.

I’m not sure if this healthy or not, but one of the ways I’ve been coping with my most recent move is by pretending I’m simply living in a Hallmark movie. There are a lot of similarities!

I live in a town of fewer than 2,000 people. One fast food place, a movie theater that shows one film four days a week, and a Pizza Hut that doesn’t deliver.

Tonight I put on my red stocking cap and my favorite jacket and walked to main street to watch the Pumpkin Festival parade. That’s totally the sort of thing a small town in a Hallmark movie would have! Maybe it would even be a main part of the plot line. You know, the town is out of money and can’t afford to host the annual pumpkin fest, so the community works together to save the event and in the process learns the true meaning of friendship and fall!

I stood there on the corner, shivering a bit towards the end, and watched as pickup trucks pulling flatbed trailers decorated in orange lights passed by. After the last float I walked a little further down the sidewalk to get a free cup of hot chocolate. Then I walked home, holding my warm drink between my gloved hands, watching families pick up their lawn chairs and begin to herd their kids off of the street. And I thought to myself, “This could totally be a scene in a Hallmark film!”

It probably helped that I was on my way back to a cute little apartment in a house that is well over a hundred years old. (The people in movies always live in buildings with character!) I was greeted by the fat orange cat who roams about the house. The kitty belongs to the woman who lives across the hall from me. She gives me books and buys me things at garage sales and has told me I can borrow the cat if I get lonely. She’s pretty fabulous and I feel like every Hallmark has a character like that.

I returned to my little set of rooms and warmed my hands over the beautiful exposed radiators, letting the warmth sink down deep into my bones. If I had a Christmas tree my apartment could totally be in a Hallmark movie. All I need now is a widowed mechanic with a difficult past but a kind spirit who shows me the true meaning of the holidays, or family, or something, and I’d be all set!