Hi everyone!
So, this is just some stream of consciousness, off the cuff fun. A good ol’ fashioned, 20-minute, lunch break thought vomit, that was then edited during a second 20-minute portion of a lunch break. More therapy than any attempt at "good writing” (internal monologue about whether I’m capable of “good writing” anyway ensues in 3… 2… 1…, Fuck you, brain).
…And we’re back!
Before we truly begin, I’d like to take a brief moment of silent gratitude to thank the Murder She Baked series for existing and being a source of comfort to me during a very dark time in my life.
Here’s the thing about Alcoholism and Hallmark though…
So, if you don’t know me, or even if you do, I’ve been really reclusive and quiet about it so you probably don’t know that my life has gone to total shit. A little over seven months ago I realized I’m an alcoholic and have been *recovery organization commonly known by a two-letter name*-ing it up on the daily ever since (some days multiple meetings). I won’t get into all of the details because it’s not only me involved, but I’ve moved back into my childhood bedroom (no hit to the ego there), and I’m setting out to “find myself” with a map of the future that is written entirely in Swedish.
Yes. Turns out I am the fucking cliché of the 46-year-old midlife crisis monster. Trust me, I see that. Don’t worry, no sports cars in my future. I’m also sober now so no worries about me getting super into coke or anything.
You see, through the fault of no one but myself, I’ve been living my life through filters of “what’s the right answer” as opposed to “what do I want/need” for so long that it has just been a kind of automated flow chart response. I don’t know that I’ve ever not lived that way, being completely honest. It’s a super weird thing to wrap your brain around. I’ve literally looked in the mirror, stared myself down, and sincerely, kind of desperately said “Who the hell are you? I don’t know who you are.” multiple times in recent days.
For anyone who hasn’t gone through something like this, treating your alcoholism leaves you really vulnerable to emotions because the anesthesia that holds that pain at bay is suddenly gone. I got super into sweets and I’m trying to dial them back now. I took up smoking cigarettes again because I’m a fucking genius like that, but I’m a couple days into a four-month long titration program to stop that shit. The emotions though, all that shit that I spent my life avoiding like the plague and that crushed me like a fuckin semi rolling down The Grapevine* when I got sober… That shit is all just relentlessly attacking me, and my life is so goddamn depressing and confusing that it’s punches are landing really fuckin hard.
*”The Grapevine” in this case, is a long, steep grade on Interstate 5, for the uninitiated
I literally went into the woods with a collection of questions to spark journaling inspiration on the topic of “who am I?” Shit like: “What do I like?” “What are my values?” “Are you the main character in your own story?” Real “stripping it down to the studs” stuff (simply reading that last one literally made me cry).
For four days I was off to go “find myself” and do so within the peace and wrenching discomfort of isolation. Unfortunately, I didn’t properly account for it being in the fucking Sierras in late November and like 20 degrees at night. I left after one night from literal fear of permanently damaging my feet with frostbite or something. I was so ashamed of bailing that I was gone just after daylight, not wanting the complete strangers who had been my neighbors for only about 10 hours and I’d never actually even spoken to, to see me “quitting in my weakness.” (fuck you, brain)
Just to note, I’m not completely stupid. I knew it would be cold, but I did underestimate how vulnerable specifically my feet would be. I could have gotten better socks, but I was so cold and defeated after that first night that I was just completely depressed and wanted to be warm again. Probably shouldn’t admit this publicly, but I thought for hours about killing myself, turns out it was just a fucked-up negotiation between my addict brain and my rational self to try to land at a twisted compromise that permitted me to drink. I almost gave in to drinking (not killing myself), but didn’t. End of the day. that trip did shake some serious stuff loose at least. Regardless, my expectations were a powerful antagonist. Self-actualization is more complicated than a long weekend excursion, even if it had been successful.
So, there’s your self-indulgent, longwinded, set table with three forks and a fancy small plate that is on top of a normal sized plate, simply for appearances.
Now, a ludicrous ~850 words in, we’re finally ready for Hallmark.
So, I’m fresh off my failure in the woods and vulnerable as hell and there’s a channel that provides a 24/7 supply of warm syrup to coat the pancakes of my soul. It’s the holiday season after all, and I’m fuckin down and exhausted. My brain barely had the bandwidth for Elizabethtown, which is the best movie Hallmark could ever dream of making (though they did not, I mean Legolas and Lux Lisbon ain’t doing Hallmark. Neither is Mark Brandanowitz, but that’s a different meditation). If you’re a sap like me, watch Elizabethtown. It’s fucking magical and your heart will be warmed. It may just melt. That said, even that movie had emotions that ranged too far and touched a little too close for comfort. I was in really rough shape.
Anyway, I developed an affinity for the surreal-ness of a charming world fueled by unsolved murders with stakes that feel more in keeping with an evil landlord refusing to renew the lease on an old flower shop, aka Murder She Baked, a couple of years back so I dialed up the Christmas themed one on demand my first night back. Then it was straight into the rest of the series which there are 9 movies that I have access to.
I’ve been basically on an IV drip ever since. Mistletoe Murders. Sister Sleuths. Every bakery, Christmas tree lot, and BnB on the brink of being lost. Every hot guy whos heart city life made cold, needing to be thawed by the love of the local librarian or theater director. Every misguided wish for a perfect Christmas that (TWIST!) ends with a perfect Christmas of an entirely different kind. I’ve taken it all in like emotional coma perpetuation medicine.
I can’t turn it off when I go to bed because I can’t take the quiet. I turn on the local news for a half an hour in the morning once every couple of days to cleanse the perspective palate, but I’m straight main-lining whipped cream on the nose moments, magical tree lightings, small town choir carol practices, blindly capitalist land developers finding the magic of small town Christmases and their soulmate at the same time, lost musicians who just need to write that one perfect Christmas song that represents who they really are, bizarrely constructed murder plots where the dude from Ed, right before he’s murdered, creates a series of puzzles relating to A Christmas Carol (Hallmark fuckin LOVES Dickens) that lead to the healing of a family and secondarily a substantial inheritance, and on and on. This has been my life aside from work, Zoom recovery group meetings, and the occasional couple of hours disappearing into the world to hunt for presents or to peek at nature.
Remember when I said “here’s the thing about Alcoholism and Hallmark though…” It was too long ago to have said it where I did. I see that now.
Here’s the thing about Alcoholism and Hallmark though. Alcohol for me, and I dare say a great many of us, is heavily tied to escapism. It takes these unmanageable feelings and turns down the volume on them. It distracts and compartmentalizes. Turns out, in that respect Hallmark Christmas movies are sorta/kinda like booze!
Sure, you can legally, and most likely safely, drive after a couple or even a few trips to Evergreen, or whatever made up English fiefdom the girl from Party of Five is off to next.
You probably won’t get fired from your job by stumbling into work high on the glee of that one actress who you swear you saw in a couple of unplaceable two episode arcs like 10 years ago (was she on Justified?) saving the small town by throwing herself in front of her company’s plans to build a ski resort that the town really wants because they don’t know that it will end up stripping them of their identity and large corporations will end up forcing the small businesses out, all while falling in love with that dude from Cruel Intentions in the process and saving him for deciding to leave because he's all bummed out about his dead wife ‘n stuff.
No, not that dude.
Nope. No, not that one either.
No! How dare you?! Not Pacey. Peter Bishop may be super underappreciated, but he’s still not touching Hallmark. I actually resent that you would think Pacey’s doing Hallmark. Man, I’ve gotta call my sponsor now. Dammit!
There it is. Yes! That’s the guy. The one from Ugly Betty.*
*Fuck it. I like Mabius, and I’ll die on that hill… or… well… hmmm… I’ll let someone slap me with an empty glove on that hill, but I’ll go ahead and climb down before any duels take place.
You probably won’t even end up bawling your eyes out with a knife in your hand saying “I just can’t do it anymore” after going on a six hour mystery bender with that one plucky doctor from Grey’s Anatomy (yeah, way to go getting it the first time) who we see through constantly recurring flashbacks was framed for some bombing, but we never actually find out why or who or how, or anything at all, but we do know that she opened a year-round Christmas store (luckily her crime solving instincts are seemingly better than her financial ones) and uses her vaguely explained abilities to solve murders while very reluctantly falling in love with the local detective. She also has two cats, and at least one of them is clearly opinionated.
You might have a hangover, but that’s more from the lack of sleep because they just never stop coming, combined with the post sugar fallout from the fucking six cups of hot cocoa that you just had to drink in the middle of the night because watching everyone drink them on TV every five minutes makes you crave it like a starving hyena at an Applebee’s.
What these things do though is give you a psychological opt out. It’s like a permission structure to lose yourself into the thought void of emotional simplicity. Problems and slights that create “growth” and “conflict” never get remotely big so they don’t even come close to registering the kind of itchiness that might threaten a tie in to worry about your actual problems.
Hallmark is a constant flow of the sedative-saturated snowfall that numbs your mind, and if you give in it will become a blizzard, and you will get lost. Then the edge of the small area you are lost in will harden into glass and then you will be trapped in a snow globe that will probably play fucking Jingle Bells in the fashion of an antique music box.*
Fear not though, the cocoa will be remarkable (probably Xanax laced) and there will be a lawyer who is a widow/er of the correct gender to optimally suit your sexual preference and they will have forgotten why Christmas is great and it will be up to you and your adorable, glasses wearing, precocious 8 year old son (you have precocious 8-year-old son with vision problems now, mazel tov!) to make them remember before they begin the paperwork to foreclose on the family owned, local factory that produces cocoa and Christmas tree-topping stars, and the moment they have this “Christmas is Magic and I’ve been living my life wrong all this time” revelation there will be a charming old man holding the reins, ready to drive you in a horse drawn carriage that is waiting right under some mistletoe that’s hanging from nowhere like Tom Cruise in a Mission Impossible movie, and everyone will converge upon you from the woods like flannel clad LL Bean zombies and start singing fucking “Noel, Noel…” and Santa will turn his head and wink. Where the fuck did Santa come from? Does it matter?
You will cease to know the difference between where you are and real life, like you’ve been imprisoned by a Jinn, or by a case of gin. (I know that was obvious, but I couldn’t just leave it on the table. I’m a hack. I own that).
…And we’re back!
Did you know that Hallmark movie consumption can release dopamine and oxytocin in your brain? I don’t know that for sure, and it doesn’t necessarily feel right, but Google just told me that the Washington Post says so (confirmation bias and my calendar reading 2024 says I don’t have to read any further than that to claim it).
Yes, dear friends. In my recovery it turns out that I have been dry drinking fucking hot cider with Tyler Hynes** and Candace Cameron-Bure***. Hallmark is, I realized earlier this week, a lovely place to visit when you need a break. It’s the sappy adult’s Saturday Morning cartoons, but it’s fuckin dangerous, bro. Don’t live there! It’s the enemy of growth. It’s a trap. It’s 100% fucking addictive.
* I like Christmas music. I’ve opened myself up to the simple festive joy of it all, and have truly developed a sincere appreciation for a whole lot of it. That said, Jingle Bells is a fucking terrible song. I get it if you disagree, and don’t think my opinion is some be all, end all of taste, but it’s how I feel and I feel it pretty strongly.
**I swear Hallmark just built that dude in a lab. He had no childhood. He was birthed by Christmas lightning like Frankenstein’s monster wearing a fucking reindeer sweater, but instead of being speech challenged and bolt necked, it made him a wizard who casts out auras of Saccharine, Valium, and charm. Christmas lightning vs. standard issue.
***No offense, but she’s in everything and I just always find myself thinking they could do better, even in a Hallmark-y way, but she’s not Ashley Williams so there’s that (apologies to Ashley Williams, we’ll always have HIMYM, but I’m good).
So, I will now force myself to change the channel. But not before seeing the one about Jules from Psych summoning some kind of Christmas Magic expert from a Hallmark movie within the Hallmark movie… Ooh, and the one about time traveling to the 90s. Fun!… Oh, and the one about a bar crawl of people dressed like Santa… Oh, and the one with the autistic kid that wants to go to a dance sounds heartwarming AF… Shoot, and the one… (song fades).
FUCK! Addict brain.
Anyhoo, there’s “Hallmark Needs a Caution Label” thought vomit warning. Don’t let your troubles pull you into Hallmark hibernation. Go for a walk. Call a friend. Take yourself out to lunch or dinner. Chain smoke a pack of cigarettes or two in the backyard with your dogs. Go buy a book that you’ll later shame yourself for not reading.
Do not go to a Christmas fair or a tree farm. It’s too soon. You’re too vulnerable right now. It would probably be best to avoid artisan chocolatiers as well for the first week or so, and if you go to an antique store make sure it is well lit and do not, under any circumstances, shake any dusty old snow globes (anything mass produced in China within the last 20 years will be within the acceptable +/- of 0% risk of containing "Christmas magic”). Talk to no patrons or shop owners who are near your age, attractive, and who have recently lost a spouse/just inherited the store from their beloved but long lost Aunt or grandparent at what has been coincidentally a major turning point in their life.
At least do this for me. Please, do not consume more than one movie per day unless it’s an intentional self-care exercise that has a scheduled end, never to exceed an eight-hour clip. I do understand that if you’re in deep enough to require detox, you may need to titrate down to this dosage, but if so be sure to stay on schedule. No cheating!
If you need further guidance, just look inside and commune with your loving Todd, as you may understand Him.
