#skip Netflix Holidate

[justahopelessssromantic]

You Make it Feel Like Christmas

Here's my contribution to @notroosterbradshaw #hello december playlist challenge ispired by the song You Make it Feel Like Christmas by Gwen Stefani. This is just pure fluff Christmas fun. I'm so thankful I was able to come out of a little writers block and get this done! I hope you all enjoy 💖 Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates!

Pairing: Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x FemReader

Warnings: Pure Christmas Fluff

I want to thank the storm that brought the snow

The view outside the large picturesque window of the Seresin family cabin looked as if the place sat in the middle of a snow globe that had just been forcefully shaken. The flakes falling were beautiful, fluffy things falling down magically as if specially just for you.

Jake watched you from the living room sofa. Your face was so in awe of the winter wonderland before you. You couldn't look away. He however couldn't take his eyes off of you. Jake had been so in awe of you since that first day together after your deal. It was like a switch had been flipped for him from just friends to something more.

What brought you to Jake's family cabin started as an agreement between the two of you just mere months before at the Hardeck. What was supposed to be an effortless plan now turned into something much more for Jake. The deal was simple: both of you were single this year, him more miserably so than he'd care to admit after his latest breakup, and together would spend the holiday season as a pair this year so you wouldn't have to do any of the events of the season alone. Sort of like a Holidate is how you explained it to him from a movie you had seen on Netflix. You gave him the rundown on the rules and it sounded foolproof enough. Instead of spending the holiday alone you'd be each other's dates. No strings attached. Simple, right?

You then made him come over to your place and watch it with you so he'd grasp the rules of the arrangement better. If you were one thing it was thorough. He ended up enjoying the movie a lot but he wasn't going to let you know that.

"So after all this is over we're going to profess our love for one another?" He had asked. "What about the no strings attached part?"

"Well obviously that part we just disregard. It's just a movie, Jake." You waved him off with a hand. "Plus there is no chance in hell that I would ever fall for you."

Jake chuckled, settling deeper into his spot on your sofa. "Well good because I wouldn't fall for you either and I'd hate for things to get awkward after I'd have to let you down gently."

"Great, then it sounds like we have a deal."

But as the days went by with him spending more and more time with you he had fallen and fallen hard. And now there were all sorts of messy tangled strings everywhere and he had no idea how he was going to untangle the mess he had made.

Sweet gingerbread made with molasses

My heart skipped and I reacted

First on the agenda was your family's annual Christmas party where you'd exchange gifts and cookies over a delicious meal your grandma would make. So in preparation the two of you had to make two different kinds of cookies, four dozen each plus of course extras to give to the rest of the team.

You had your recipe book out reading the ingredients off to Jake as he set out everything that was needed for the sweet treats. The two of you would take turns reading the instructions while the other did the work until you had the dough perfectly set up.

You began rolling the dough into perfect little balls as you recited Elf, which you had turned on to watch as you baked, word for word. Jake of course made fun of you for it but you paid him no mind.

"The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear." You reminded him before joining along with Buddy the Elf. "I'm in a store and I'm singing" You belted out with him before receiving a face full of flour leaving you speechless.

"I'm so sorry," Jake did his best to keep his laughs in but it just wasn't working, "but I just had to stop that atrocity somehow."

You stared at him unblinking for what felt like forever. Jake began to sweat a little thinking his little prank had severely backfired and he'd be facing your full rage any moment now.

You raised your hand and he was preparing for a slap when smack there was the cold crack before the gooey contents of the egg you had snuck into your hand were now sliding down the side of his face.

"Oh it's on now."

Maybe ten minutes later the two of you sat on the kitchen floor amongst your mess exhausted from the food fight and laughter. Jake pulled a piece of shell out of his hair. "Lucky for me I heard raw egg is eggcelent for your hair."

You rolled your eyes at him. "You did not seriously just say eggcelent." You snorted with your laughter.

It was then that his heart skipped a beat.

Thought I was done for, thought that love had died

But you came along, I swear you saved my life

The drive up to the Seresin family cabin was a quiet one. Jake was too lost in his own thoughts while you slept peacefully in the passenger seat of his truck. He didn't know what he was going to do. He didn't want to ruin the incredible friendship he had with you.

He wasn't expecting to fall in love. He didn't think he'd feel it again after the last heartbreak but man he couldn't be happier or more terrified.

He decided he was going to tell you even if it didn't turn out as he had hoped. He just had to make sure you knew how he felt and that you saved his life.

Now it was the night before Christmas. You had just finished helping Jake and his mother clean up after dinner. You told her to go relax and you would handle the rest which Jake stayed behind to help you out. It was rather peaceful as he washed and you dried in harmonious silence. You had come to love his presence. It just felt natural at this point.

You finished up and both headed out to join everyone out on the deck for some hot cocoa under the stars. Everyone was staring at the two of you now where you had stopped.

"Look who is under the mistletoe!" Jake's mother pointed out to the two of you.

You looked up and sure enough someone had planted the mistletoe right where the two of you stood.

"You know what that means…" She encouraged the two of you. She was most certainly your biggest fan.

Put on the spot you didn't really feel like you had much choice here. Not that you really minded. You turned to Jake who was staring at you now trying to read his reaction to your predicament.

Now was his chance to say something. He opened his mouth to speak and suddenly all the words were stuck. He couldn't even get one word out. He was certain he looked like an idiot standing there. It felt like that moment was never ending, the two of you stuck frozen in time just staring at one another.

You decided to take charge making the first move. "Are you going to just stand there staring at me Jake or are you going to close the pretty little mouth of yours and kiss me already?"

You caught him off guard but thankfully he recovered quickly. You didn't have to tell him twice.

He swept you up in what most certainly could be described as the best kiss you had ever experienced simply taking your breath away before you parted.

His family's cheering was muffled around you. All your focus was on him who was grinning like an idiot mirroring your own expression as you held each other there.

"So much for never falling for me." He gloated.

"Oh shut up, you fell for me first."

I never thought I'd find a love like this

But I found forever in that very first kiss

✨You make it feel like Christmas✨

#hello december playlist challenge #jake seresin x reader #jake seresin x you #jake hangman seresin

[jomiddlemarch]

ARULES: TAG NINE PEOPLE YOU’D LIKE TO GET TO KNOW/CATCH UP WITH!

tagged by @tortoisesshells who’s awfully nice to include me

Three ships: Sam/Ruth (GLOW), Annie/Jeff (Community), and in a non-Allison Brie choice, Mary/Jed (Mercy Street-- will the conclusion of the murder mystery lead to a Third Golden Age of Fanfic?!)

Last song: whatever was playing on my Erroll Garner playlist, possibly “The Look of Love”

Last film: abandoning The Sound of Silence (though it’s good if you can’t fall asleep), The Hunt For Red October in honor of Sean Connery and the Netflix Rebecca 

Currently reading: The Tenth Muse (Catherine Chung), The Secret Commonwealth (Philip Pullman)

Currently watching: The Mandalorian, Timeless, House Hunters International

Currently consuming: last was tea, soon to be Chardonnay

Currently craving: above mentioned Chardonnay, take-out burritos for dinner, for EVERYONE TO WEAR AN F-ING MASK ALREADY and TRUMP TO CONCEDE YOU COLOSSAL LOSER, an ending for the chapter of my novel I’ve been kicking around for like 6-8 weeks. Apple cider doughnut cake.

Tagging:  @kivrin @sassy-doctor-foster @the-spaztic-fantastic @britishdetectives @incognito-princess @lucyemers @oldshrewsburyian @ultrahotpink if you’re interested.

#about me #friday night #fandom mom #I watch Mandalorian with my son #we also watched Umbrella Academy together #pro tip #skip Netflix Holidate #too boring to hate-watch even

[coolyourdools]

Netflix Christmas Movies I watched in the last week, rated

A Castle for Christmas - ⭐ I appreciated a romcom starring older characters, and I really like Cary Elwes. But the main characters in this were kind of jerks and hard to root for, there was little chemistry, and tons of Scottish stereotyping.

The Knight Before Christmas - ⭐⭐ This was a really goofy premise, but the movie committed to it and I loved it. Unbelievable, and way cheesy, but the main characters were cute!

Love Hard - ⭐⭐⭐ Terrible name, but everything else about it was great. Cast more comedians in romantic roles please forever! Jimmy O. Yang is super cute, and he and Nina Dobrev had great chemistry. Also the movie is extremely funny and well written. Best of the season.

Holidate - 🚫 0 stars. This was so terrible I literally started skipping through it. The main dude is a total douche and everyone else is only marginally better. Aside from weird racist holiday stuff, it's chock full of slut shaming, gender essentialism, heteronormativity, etc etc. This came out in 2020, not 1990, Netflix, come on!!

Anyway I'm off to watch Single All the Way to clear my palate.

#netflix #movies #christmas movies #love hard #a knight before christmas #not tagging the ones i didnt like cause i dont wanna put negativity in the tag 😅

[tvmoviechristmas]

Holidate (Netflix, 2020)

Fucking holidays.

Starring: Emma Roberts, Luke Bracey, Jessica Capshaw, Luke Bracey

Plot Synopsis: Sloane and Jackson hate being single on holidays where they face constant judgment from their meddling families. So, when these two strangers meet, they pledge to be each other's "holidate" for every festive occasion in the year ahead. (x)

In My Humble Opinion: To call Holidate a Christmas movie is a stretch. Yes, it has bookends that take place during the Christmas holidays, but in total it’s a generous 15% of the film. Christmas gets the ball going but it doesn’t play a major role in any of the proceedings.

But I watched this damn movie for the blog, and I am going to get something out of this dreadful experience even if it’s just checking a review I have to write off my to-do list.

Holidate is about two people that had bad Christmas holiday experiences and decide that their lives would be better if they had platonic, no pressure dates for the rest of the yearly holidays. And when I say “rest of the yearly holidays”, I am including holidays both real and imagined. Have you ever met someone who was desperate for a St. Patrick’s Day date? Well, apparently, this is a normal problem in Holidate. Is Cinco de Mayo a couples holiday? I thought it was just an excuse for racist white people to get drunk and hook up. Holidate argues otherwise. These poor people feel pressure to have Fourth of July dates! I have no idea how they live. I really don’t.

The most wild thing about holidates though is that you are not even supposed to be invested in your holidate as a person. Platonic is pushing it for holidates! At one point, Emma Roberts is like, “We’re not friends! We only see each other on holidays!” But they’re seeing each other on every holiday! They are seeing each other more than I saw my actual good friends in like 2019! They’re not friends?!?! It is absurd. The premise to this movie is absurd!

And like, sure, whatever I can handle absurdity. Most romantic comedies are absurd. But you have to have chemistry to hang on. You have to have a couple I can root for.

Holidate did not have that. It had Emma Roberts, who dated a French guy for a couple of months and will never get over it and Luke Bracey, who is Australian and has some golf-related job. They have some sort of chemistry but if you expect it to be developed further than handjob jokes and gross-out gags than you are going to be disappointed. That’s the other thing that’s supposed to make Holidate stand out.... it’s raunchy!

I grew up in the era where Judd Apatow took over romantic comedies for the worse though, so raunchiness isn’t a novel thing to me. I’ve seen Bridesmaids. I’ve seen Trainwreck. I’ve seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall. And while they are all varying levels of quality, they are all better than Holidate just by virtue of caring for its characters outside of when they can talk about drinking or fucking next. Also they are funnier. Also Holidate is terrible. Just really, really terrible. No fun at all. 

At least I got a blog post out of it.

Watch If: You are a woman who thinks that it is all about the hands, if you cannot date a professional clown or if you are sitting at the kids’ table with a vodka.

Skip If: You are an employed person who goes to the mall on a Wednesday, if you have a Matt Lauer tattoo, or if you’re a man who wants to date a smoker who lies.

Final Rating: ★ (★) ☆ ☆ ☆ 

If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page! You can also donate money to [email protected] through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you! 

#holidate #netflix #review #1.5 stars

[aion-rsa]

New Netflix Christmas Movies in 2020 Ranked from Best to Worst

https://ift.tt/3q2Rba0

Netflix is doing its level best to eat everyone else’s entertainment lunch, and the holiday movie game is no exception. Just a few short years after planting the flag that was the cult megahit A Christmas Prince, the streamer has more offerings than ever, including some sequels to their top-notch 2018 productions. We break down some of this winter’s already released heavy hitters so you know what to watch and what to skip.

Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey

Available Now

This star-studded Christmas musical is the most magical of the bunch. Picture The Wiz meets Willy Wonka, with John Legend as a producer. Forest Whitaker stars as a down-and-out toymaker who has lost his touch and everything else that makes life special: his wife (Sharon Rose) has passed and his daughter (Tony winner Anika Noni Rose, Little Fires Everywhere, The Princess and the Frog) moved away, estranged. Years earlier he created a unique matador toy that comes to life (voiced by a delightfully villainous Ricky Martin, who has a lot of fun with a wandering accent). The naughty toy and the toymaker’s apprentice (Kegan-Michael Key) left with the toymaker’s book of ideas, putting him out of business and making themselves mega-rich.

Things really get going when the toymaker’s granddaughter (bonafide star Madalen Mills, who I can’t believe is a newcomer) comes to town and she, along with a neighborhood boy with aspirations of being a great toy inventor, try to save the toymaker from himself. There’s singing, dancing, baroque steampunk galore, earnest lessons learned, and magic that’s something like science. It’s the kind of movie the phrase “family fun adventure” was invented to describe.

Clocking in at more than two hours, this one could tighten up the runtime a bit, but that just means there are plenty of safe opportunities to refill your eggnog or run to the restroom. I dare you to watch this movie and not feel the holiday spirit.

Operation Christmas Drop

Available Now

In order to protect her boss’ interests, congressional aide Erica (our girl Kat Graham/Bonnie Bennet from Vampire Diaries!) is sent to a military base in the Pacific over Christmas to find excess spending in order to justify budget cuts. Her biggest target is Operation Christmas Drop, a real-life program where service members from the U.S., Japan, and Australia drop presents (and life-saving supplies) to remote surrounding islands. Hyper-focused Erica knows there’s a possible promotion on the line and she has to work harder than a bunch of white dudes named Matt back in DC in order to get it, putting her at odds with the base’s own Santa, Capt. Andrew Jantz (Andrew Ludwid, Vikings, The Hunger Games). 

Any time one of these movies has a protagonist of color, it’s unfortunately notable, though Netflix (with the exception of the Christmas Prince franchise) creates more diverse offerings than just about anyone else. In addition to directly engaging with how much harder the Ericas of the world have to work to get their due, Operation Christmas Drop also highlights the people who live on Guam and the surrounding islands, as the first full-length major studio movie filmed there. 

Featuring the old favorite romance trope “enemies to lovers,” a tropical Christmas, and some of the real-life people who make the actual Christmas Drop possible, Operation Christmas Drop is an ideal holiday romcom. It’s still goofy at times and heart-fluttery at others, and of course everything will work out in the end, but it’s better written than most of what’s on TV and casting Kat Graham is always a good choice.

The Princess Switch, Switched Again

Available Now

It’s not Christmas until you’ve seen Vanessa Hudgens chloroform herself. The sequel to 2018’s The Princess Switch, The Princess Switch, Switched Again, rightly knows that Kevin (Nick Sagar) is a better leading man than the walking melba toast that is Prince Edward (Sam Palladio). When we last saw the sous chef dad with the six-pack abs who likes sappy Christmas movies and wearing the hell out of sweaters, he was making out with Lady Margaret. In the two years since then, they’ve split up, the king of Montenaro has passed away, and Margaret’s cousin who was next in line for the throne has abdicated, which means Lady Margaret will be crowned on Christmas. Naturally. 

The Princess Switch franchise has found the sweet spot between “painfully bad” and “so bad it’s good.” The latest iteration adds what the first lacked – a worthy villain. Vanessa Hudgens gleefully vamps around as a Kardashian-esque cousin of Lady Margaret’s who goes after the Montenaran crown. It’s fun to watch Hudgens be bad, and it adds a requisite layer of novelty to the proceedings. 

There’s also a little crossover moment from the Christmas Prince franchise. It’s very quick and I don’t think anyone even says a word, but it’s a fun one for fans. It also probably means that in the world of the NCCU (Netflix Christmas Cinematic Universe), The Christmas Prince movies are documentaries, which is more than I can handle. 

It’s a rarity, but with The Princes Switch, the sequel is even better than the original. The Princess Switch 2 knows exactly what kind of movie it is – fun, silly, romantic, distracting, a purveyor of both great and terrible fashion, and maybe a little eye roll-inducing. Perfection. 

Holidate

Available Now

If you like a little spice with your sugar, Holidate is the right holiday rom-com. Netflix is already the anti-Hallmark in this category, trading judgey and Jesus-y for a sense of humor and soundtracks worth bookmarking on Spotify. And Holidate doubles down on the snark and PG-13-ness of it all.

Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey star as Sloane and Jackson, two singles sick of shrugging off a million questions and setups throughout the holiday season. The cast is rounded out with Frances Fisher (Watchmen, Titanic), Jessica Capshaw from Grey’s Anatomy, SNL’s Alex Moffat, Jake Manley from The Order, and Manish Dayal of Halt and Catch Fire and The Hundred-Foot Journey, proving he deserves to play a romantic lead.

Taking inspiration from Sloane’s perpetually single Aunt Susan (Kristin Chenoweth, who gets away with being so much weirder than anyone else ever could thanks to her many charms), Luke and Sloane go out as platonic dates to a year’s worth of holidays, starting with New Year’s. That also means that while we see two Christmas’, the movie spends a large chunk of time on the other holidays – St. Patrick’s Day, the Fourth of July, Halloween, etc – so this one doesn’t always feel the most Christmas-y. 

Read more

TV

Christmas Movies and TV Specials: Full 2020 Schedule

By Den of Geek Staff

Movies

The Best Alternative Christmas movies

By Mark Harrison

This flick may end up being too tart (or just plain awkward) for some, and the repeated use of the word “pussy” during what’s ostensibly a Christmas movie is not for everyone. But if all the sappiness of the season is feeling too saccharine and you’re sick of being seated at the kids table or getting grilled about when you’ll finally get married, Holidate might just hit the spot.

The Christmas Chronicles 2

Available Now

The follow-up to one of Netflix’s best family holiday offerings, The Christmas Chronicles 2 brings back Kurt Russell’s cool Santa for a sequel that has 100 percent more wormholes and time travel than fun side characters and snappy jokes. There’s a much larger role for Goldie Hawn’s Mrs. Claus, who is something of a kind-hearted Christmas sorceress. Kate (Darby Camp, Big Little Lies) is now staring down the barrel of teenagerhood and spending Christmas in Cancun while her mom makes heart-eyes at a new guy, who brings with him his 10 year-old son, Jack (Jahzir Bruno).

Big brother Teddy (Judah Lewis) moves into the backdrop as Kate and Jack go on an adventure in the North Pole, squaring off with one of Santa’s former elves, Belsnickel (Julian Dennison, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Deadpool 2).

While it’s always nice to revisit a favorite – and Christmas Chronicles is so much about the best aspects of a family movie – the sequel loses a lot of that appeal. Without a clear and compelling story to drive the plot forward like the original had, Christmas Chronicles 2 lags significantly throughout and it’s unclear when the adventure starts, what it’s goals are, and then the movie even struggles to wrap up as a result.

It doesn’t help that this movie is bogged down by some convoluted mythology tying the elves to Christianity via the Star of Bethlehem that low-key paints Santa as a Moses-like figure.

The musical number does bring things back to life for a while. This time it’s in a 1990-era Logan airport in Boston with Darlene Love singing a duet with Santa instead of Stevie Van Zandt, though they are singing his song, “The Spirit of Christmas.”

This makes for Darlene Love’s second appearance in the NCCU; The first was Holiday Rush, where she played Rush’s Aunt Jo. I’m ignoring the fact that she’s credited as “Denise” in Christmas Chronicles 2 and choosing to believe that Aunt Jo worked a desk for Pan Am, TSA or whoever in the ‘90s to pay the bills while waiting for her true calling as a singer to take off.

Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square

Available Now

In between funding a possible cure for the coronavirus and trying to solve illiteracy, Dolly Parton found time to star in and write 14 original songs for a Christmas special. The great Debbie Allen of Fame fame (more recently, Dr. Catherine Avery on Grey’s Anatomy) directs this all-singing, all-dancing Christmas musical, bringing her multi-talented prowess to bear. That means this thing follows the musical tropes more closely than those of a typical Christmas TV movie, even though it also falls into the Hallmark penchant for religiosity that feels a bit off.

The best parts of Christmas on the Square are all the toe-tapping small-town songs about the townsfolk banding together to stop local Scrooge named Regina (played with adroit dry wit by Christine Baranski) from selling off their town. There’s a pastor named Christian (obviously) and a cute kid who gets hurt but only in a way that’s dramatic and leaves her still very cute and able to join in the final town celebration. That’s the kind of silly holiday fun we all signed up for. 

Regina’s best friend Margeline (Jenifer Lewis, The Princess and The Frog, Black-ish) is a scene-stealer and the back half of the movie is lesser for her relative absence. The numbers get a little less zippy and the movie feels a lot longer than roughly an hour and a half. Somewhere along the way, we get the sort of slutshame-y backstory of Baranski’s character, whose first-ever high school dance resulted in a pregnancy which she (obviously) carried to term. Her father took her baby away from her while she was crying in the delivery room, giving it up for adoption. Pretty intense for the genre! 

It’s not like the movie becomes a portrait of gritty realism from there–Dolly Parton is definitely a floating, glowing, rhinestone-encrusted angel, although that’s closer to what folks come for. An underutilized Jeanine Mason (Roswell, NM) and Matthew Johnson (Songland) – whose voice is arresting – add to the fun, but there’s no two ways around it: It’s an odd little movie.

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