the ocean

It's that time of year again -- the time when Hallmark Channel shelves Jessica Fletcher and The Golden Girls for a couple of months in favor of Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. Now, if you've seen the commercials where Candace Cameron Bure or Alicia Witt explains what doesn't actually need explaining, you already know that Hallmark actually has two channels, one of which shows touching dramas (i.e., extra Jesus) and one of which shows lighthearted romantic comedies (i.e., B-list actresses doing slapstick). But what you may not know is that if you actually watch Hallmark Channel for the entirety of this period, you will likely go insane.

This year's new offerings, I must say, aren't super compelling. There's something where Rachel Boston plays an angel who falls in love with a human while saving Christmas; the only real shock is that it looks like there's something on her face the whole time. We also got one where Alison Sweeney runs an inn of some sort where families inexplicably want to spend time together and seem to talk about egg nog a lot. There was some sort of madness involving allegedly magical Christmas ornaments, I guess because they've run out of other things to randomly declare magical. And there was something with real life married couple Alex and Carlos PenaVega somehow demonstrating less sexual tension than the average episode of the Property Brothers.

The new Cameron Bure is kind of a wonder, though, in that she plays mismatched twins, both of whom come off prissy as hell because, well, Cameron Bure, but are very different because one is a suburban mom while the other is a city-dwelling businesswoman. There's a trading of places, some crap about party planning, mutual respect discovered through madcap mishaps. It's a definite recommend.