Welcome to this episode of American Histories Context Clues, where I, your host, Chelsea

Webber Smith, share some sections from previous topics we've covered over the years that

will hopefully make richer our next series on Hallmark Christmas Movies.

This winter season, it seems like everyone is talking about the joy and the folly of

the cheesy, oversaturated, made for TV Christmas movie market.

Of course, there are those from the royal crowned head of Hallmark, but now they're also

churned out from lifetime Netflix, and it seems every single other streaming service

that I subscribe to.

When it comes to these movies, it's hard to avoid a basic understanding of how these

stories work, with their unceasingly formulaic plots.

A big city career woman with an inattentive boyfriend and a distaste for the holiday season

finds herself by some small misfortune in a small town, where she meets a handsome

blue collar, sensitive man who revives her Christmas spirit, leading her to taper down her career

ambitions and focus on what really matters.

Many people sincerely love these movies because they are always warm and comforting.

Everything always works out in the end, and everything is always chaste, usually only

one quick kiss at the end.

Often followed by some secondary character shooting into the sky because he's Santa and

everyone finds out that magic is real after all.

Others of us love them purely for their corny, almost can't be nature, something to quote

to our friends, something to make drinking games about.

While we too sit back to enjoy these little drag shows of the American dream, but they

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