The best way to get through or to complete something you really don’t want to do is to just get started. At the risk of sounding like an overzealous fitness influencer, it may be easier said than done, but it works. Just do it and before you know it, it’s over.
Although I can appreciate the joy others get from Christmas, it is one of those things I look forward to being done with. For starters, I find it too long of a buildup for just one day. Again, I understand how many may enjoy that part of the holiday season. I experience the same adrenaline rush from the first day Cubs’ pitchers and catchers report for spring training until opening day.
To get through this Christmas, I just did a thing. By luck or fate, the day after Thanksgiving I found myself bored of murder shows and comedy specials. With remote in hand, nothing specific that had to be done and a lack of motivation to move, I searched.
Silly me. I clicked on the Lifetime TV channel. As if something knew I needed a reminder of the season, a list of Christmas movies appeared. I know about the cheesy, sappy, predictable Lifetime genre, but a catchy title caught my eye [“Mom’s Christmas Boyfriend.”] I hit the OK button.
Within the first minute, I knew the outcome. Yet, I didn’t switch the channel. Since they are all the same, there is no way to ruin the ending. A little girl enters her wish in a department store writing contest for a boyfriend for her mom. Not just any boyfriend, she wanted a “penguin” or for life boyfriend for her wonderful, caring, loving, deserving, beautiful, independent mom. You know the rest of the story.
Of course, the mom has to kiss a few frogs before she finds her prince, who predictably, just happens to be the grantor of the wish. I found myself pulling for the nice, caring, gentle, genuine sap who had to endure and document the calculating, narcissistic, self-absorbed shenanigans of the most pompous jerk the mom could choose.
The mom suffered on each outing with the jerk of her choosing as the nice guy sympathized while trying to deny he was developing any fondness for her. His best friend knew. The daughter knew. The mom’s best friend knew. Everyone knew except the two who should have known. Could it get any cheesier? It’s Lifetime. Yes, it would. Yet, I couldn’t change the channel. I was invested.
At the insistence of his best friend, the nice guy finally admitted he had “caught” feelings for the mom. Naturally and predictably, the second half of the movie was how to reveal the truth and hope the feelings were mutual. Leave it to the manipulative child to recognize this was the forever boyfriend she had wished for her mom.
It was time for the “Mr. Rogers” type to stand up to the emotionally void but physically perfect Goliath. He did it right in front of her, causing her to realize that he was what she had been looking and hoping for all along. It was a verbal Rocky Balboa defeats Apollo Creed moment. you know the rest of the story. The little girl’s wish for a miracle had come true.
My wish to get through this season got off to a different start. I think I’ll make it. It should be easy after discovering that Lifetime has more than 100 Christmas movies, including 12 new movies this year. That means I could watch five warm and fuzzy Lifetime Christmas movies per day to get me through. And if that is not enough, Hallmark Channel has over 300 Christmas movies, including 47 new features this year.
Ironically, I’ll know I made it through the season after seeing all the trash receptacles full of packaging, proving that Santa is real.
Ron Jackson can be contacted through the Daily Journal at [email protected]
