With every holiday season comes the arrival of new cheerful Christmas movies. A specific genre for a specific demographic of viewers. Hallmark movies, in particular, are amongst the most ‘magical’ of the season telling stories of remarkable fate, lust, and of course— true love.

Some gawk at the unrealistic turn of events. I mean marrying a man after knowing him for two days..and he was previously engaged to your friend’s baker’s sister? Completely normal! A medieval knight time travels from the 15th century to 2019 unknowingly, and then somehow ends up in your guest house? Obviously. 

I don’t know about you, but I can barely get in the door without my Mom pulling me to the couch to embark on another story of a lonely girl getting swept off her feet by the arms of a dreamy man. So, why do we like these altruistic stories of truelove and dreams? I asked around to see what other girls thought about the mischief.

Emma Tognoli, a 3rd year pre-nursing student, says she loves the predictability.

“We love the conflict, the juiciness, because in reality we don’t want conflict in our own lives, it’s never a fairy tale in real life,” Tognoli says. “In shows like that there’s always a resolution and a happy ending. Not like conflict in real life that drags on to more problems.”

Tognoli says we girls can often romanticize dramatic situations that happen in our own lives in order to compensate for how crappy they often really are. Or maybe it’s that we can relate to the characters. Longing for the perfect man to appear in our lives if almost, or literally, by a poof of smoke.

Other’s used the words ‘cheesy, stupid, unrealistic’, and maybe that’s the point! In our world overflowing with problems, conflict, heartbreak and pain, who wouldn’t want to vege out for a couple hours. Of course it should be a given that I’m talking about the ladies here. There has been no man I’ve met in my life or asked about Hallmark that hasn’t laughed it off completely. Unless that is, he’s watching them for a girl friend.

Feeling ready to embark on your own Christmas binge, here’s a link to the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Since most of us have Netflix, here’s a shortcut to all the movies available to stream this holiday season.

Some of my favorites are: 

A Christmas Prince, about a reporter who sets out to uncover the real tea behind the royal family. Turns out her and the prince really hit it off.

Christmas Inheritance, a city socialite is only able to get her inheritance money by delivering a Christmas card to her father’s old friend in Snow Falls. Once she gets snowed in by a storm, she just happens to meet someone…

The Knight Before Christmas, remember earlier when a mentioned a knight in shining armor time traveling? Yep, it’s this one. Meet Sir Cole who runs into a science teacher who doesn’t believe in love anymore. Maybe it’s the blade of his sword or a match striking a candle, but sparks fly.