The Holiday is an all-time Christmas classic and favorite of mine! Two heartbroken women from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean (California and England) decide to swap homes and lives to escape heartbreak during the holiday season. But what happens when you’re not looking for love? It finds you! One of the newer entries on the list, The Noel Diary sees the story of popular author, Jake, as he returns home on Christmas to settle his estranged mother’s estate. After discovering a diary that may hold secrets to his own past, he meets a mysterious woman who’s in search of her birth mother. The two team up to explore their pasts whilst seemingly paving out a new future. Who doesn’t love watching a pretend couple fall in love with each other? After a chance meeting and fed up with being single, two strangers agree to be each other’s platonic plus-ones for all the holidays throughout the year. You know what happens next! About a Boy is an adaptation of a novel of the same name, and follows Will, a carefree man free of responsibilities who, though childless, joins a single parents network in the hopes of meeting single women. After a turn of events, he ends up looking after a young boy, who teaches him how to act like a real adult. Watch for the “Killing Me Softly” concert scene alone. … It’s a classic! Last Christmas brings you Kate, a young woman who is always making bad decisions! Though wanting to be a singer, she finds herself working as an elf in a year-round Christmas store. But her life takes an unexpected turn when she meets Tom. Is it too good to be true? I mean, Bridget Jones’s Diary really needs no introduction. A timeless Christmas classic based on the book of the same name, Bridget Jones is a 32-year-old British single woman who uses her diary to focus on her life’s wishes. After being hopelessly single, she finds herself in a situation where two men are fighting for her affections. It’s every girls dream, right?! Any film that has Matthew McConaughey in it, sign me up, especially if it’s a cheesy rom-com! Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is loosely based on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and sees a serial womanizer haunted by the ghosts of his past girlfriends while attending his brother’s wedding. Four Christmases tells the story of Kate and Brad, a couple who both come from dysfunctional families with divorced parents and obnoxious siblings with out-of-control kids. Adverse to marriage and having kids of their own, each year they find themselves avoiding their families at Christmas by traveling abroad or pretending to do charity work. That is until they must travel to four Christmas parties to visit all four of their divorced parents after their vacation plans get canceled due to a dense fog. Based on the story Christmas Gift by John D. Weaver, Holiday Affair sees a young widow torn between a boring attorney and a romantic but irresponsible man. Will love be in the cards for anyone? Natalie is an unlucky in love LA girl who falls for an East Coast guy on a dating app. Deciding to surprise him for the holidays, she only ends up finding that she’s been catfished. Love Hard shows the trials and tribulations of wanting and finding love! In The Perfect Holiday, an aspiring songwriter, Benjamin, tries to break into the music business by giving a copy of his Christmas album to a rap artist named J-Jizzy. On the other side, the young daughter of a divorced mother turns to a department store Santa and wishes him to find a new husband for her mother. The Family Stone dishes up a powerhouse cast with one simple story line: What happens when a boyfriend brings his uptight and conservative businesswoman girlfriend to his eccentric family’s annual Christmas celebration? Let the free spirits fly! Love Actually boasts one of the most incredible castings to this date for a seasonal rom-com, and look, I am not saying this film aged well, and we all know there is plenty wrong with it, so don’t judge me…because I cannot help liking it for all of the good parts it offers. Think of rock ’n’ roll legend Billy Mack (Nighy), Hugh Grant dancing around as Prime Minister, Emma Thompson’s utter heartbreak that we CANNOT bear to watch every single year…I honestly wish this film did things differently when you reflect on the distasteful parts because it has so much good stuff to offer. Sorry, I still like it! You all must have known that this one was coming? In true black and white classic fashion, It’s a Wonderful Life is a special and meaningful watch in which a heavenly angel is sent to help a man who has given up on his dreams, by showing him what life would have been like if he had never existed. I’m not crying, you are. Loosely based on the 1950 British film of the same name, Queen Latifah stars as a humble department store assistant who is told she only has a few weeks left to live. With that, she decides to sell all her possessions and live it up at a posh Central European hotel. We’re back at it with the pretend relationships in Single All the Way. Meet Peter, a man desperate to avoid his family’s judgment for another holiday, who convinces his best friend, Nick, to join him for the holidays and act as his partner. Oh, I wonder what happens next… The Best Man Holiday is a sequel to The Best Man (1999) and sees college friends reunite over the Christmas holidays after 15 years. The result? long-forgotten rivalries, and romances are reignited. Your classical Christmas musical film, Meet Me In St. Louis offers up a year in the life of the Smith family in St. Louis leading up to the opening of the World’s Fair in the spring of 1904. Have yourself a merry little Christmas with this one… Lindsay Lohan is back, guys!! Falling for Christmas is the star’s first major production in what feels like an age! Lindsay’s return finds her in a naturally cliche and formulaic film, but if you can’t enjoy one of those at Christmastime, then when can you?! In this addition to the Christmas watches, a young and newly engaged heiress experiences a skiing accident leaving her with amnesia. Soon after, she finds herself in the care of a conveniently handsome lodge owner and his daughter. Time for “unexpected” romance, guys…
