What These Lifetime Movies Should Have Been About

Until they make a holiday celebrating battered women and mysterious kidnappings, Christmas is probably Lifetime’s favorite time of the year. Around November, Lifetime begins to churn out an excess of holiday-themed fair. Ranging from campy melodrama to melodramatic camp, these movies feature low budget sets, horrifying scripts and wooden acting. Just what you want around the holidays!

To honor the network that made a movie called “An Amish Murder” (I’m not kidding, it premieres in January), I decided to take the titles of eight holiday-themed Lifetime Original Movies and try to guess what they might be about, based solely on the title. I’ve also listed Lifetime’s actual plot summary so you can see how close I got. Let’s just say that I don’t think Lifetime will be calling me up for a job anytime soon.

1. A Dad for Christmas

What It Should Be About: Eric is a washed up actor who comes up with a brilliant money-making scheme. He hires himself out as a “dad” for Christmas morning. His holiday schedule is booked as he bounces between the houses of divorcees and single moms. Eric’s got a long list of rules that keep him from getting too attached to the families he visits. At first it’s all fun and games until Eric meets Shelia, a single mom who breaks every rule in his book.

What It’s Actually About: “Matt, who is nineteen, goes to the hospital to see his newborn son, only to discover that his young girlfriend has already made arrangements for a couple to the adopt him. With the adoption imminent and no means to stop it, Matt takes Luke out of the hospital to his grandmother's house.”

(That’s literally the description I pulled from Lifetime’s website. Talk about a boring way to sum up what sounds like a pretty dramatic movie.)

2. Comfort and Joy

What It Should Be About: Two high-class escorts, Comfort and Joy, ply their trade around the holidays. It’s a madcap comedy as the two girls are invited to an important Christmas party where hundreds of their clients are in attendance. Mistaken identities, physical comedy, and holiday hijinks ensue as these two wacky hookers with hearts of gold scramble to keep their true professions a secret.

What It’s Actually About: “An upscale, single, career woman is knocked unconscious in a car accident on Christmas eve and when she wakes up, she's told that she's a married housewife with a husband and two kids. After spending time with her "family," she finds that she likes the loving wife and mother she has become though she has no recollection of how she got there.”

(Any movie that starts with the description “an upscale, single, career woman” is bound to be awful.)

3. A Boyfriend for Christmas

What It Should Be About: A young girl named Caley finally raises the money to complete her gender reassignment surgery. She breaks the news to her conservative family on Christmas Eve and is kicked out of the house just before the egg nog is served. Caley finds a new friend in Mia, a street artist also spending Christmas Eve alone. A tentative romance blossoms between the two outcasts and Mia takes Caley to the hospital for her procedure. With her surgery complete Caley (now Carl) finally becomes what she always wanted to be- a boyfriend for Christmas.

What It’s Actually About: “Holly professes that she doesn’t believe in Santa Claus since she can’t meet the man of her dreams. When Santa sets her up with Ryan, he seems perfect until it is revealed that he has kept some secrets from her. Ultimately, Holly must choose between her bland boyfriend Ted and Ryan.”

(Don’t tell me you wouldn’t rather watch my version.)

4. Christmas in Paradise

What It Should Be About: The title leans heavily on irony as there’s nothing perfect about this Christmas vacation. The Barnes family are shipwrecked on a deserted island and spend the holidays trying to survive. Just as they settle into their new lives, mysterious noises emerge from the jungle. It soon becomes clear that there’s something else out there. The entire clan is killed  off one by one, leaving little Jimmy to fend for himself against a mysterious monster on Christmas Day.

What It’s Actually About: “Two families looking to escape bad holiday memories take a vacation to an exotic Caribbean island over Christmas. Given all they have in common, the parents and kids develop bonds over the course of their stay. When an unexpected visitor from the past appears and threatens their tentative romance, what promised to be a happy Christmas filled with fresh hope and new relationships turns complicated. Eventually, the two families come back together in love, friendship and filled with the Christmas spirit.” 

(Does someone get paid to write these things?)

5. Holiday Baggage

What It Should Be About: Two flight attendants, Crystal and Carmen, cook up a crazy scheme to rob from the rich and give to the poor. It’s a sort of Robin-Hood-in-the-skies story as the attendants steal the baggage of greedy businessmen and give it away to needy families. Everything’s going according to plan until Crystal falls in love with the very businessman she is supposed to be stealing from.

What It’s Actually About: “A marriage and family who rediscovers the meaning of Christmas when pediatrician by day, single mom by night, Sarah invites her estranged pilot husband, Pete, back to their suburban home for the holidays on one condition--he must reconcile with their daughters before she agrees to finalize their trial separation with divorce.” 

(I hope her business cards read “pediatrician by day, single mom by night.”)

6. Christmas Crash

What It Should Be About: A sequel to the 2004 Oscar winning film Crash, this movie takes a hard look at the issues of race and class that plague our society. But this time it’s set at Christmas! Ludacris is the only returning star from the original film and he turns in a stunning performance as a mall Santa dealing with prejudice.

What It’s Actually About: “A couple on the brink of divorce crashes their private plane into the woods and are presumed dead. Their children do not give up hope and find them after days go by. We learn that one of his business partners was responsible for the crash. Their near death adventure reminds them of how much they still love each other.”

(Wow, that was way darker than I expected.)

7. Crazy for Christmas

What It Should Be About: After suffering with mental instability for years, Angel’s family commits her to a psychiatric hospital on Christmas Eve. Angel is reluctant to join group therapy at first until a no-nonsense nurse (a surprise cameo by Rob Lowe) changes her mind. In therapy, Angel meets a whole host of characters who teach her that there’s no shame in being crazy for Christmas.

What It’s Actually About: “Shannon is stuck working on Christmas Eve, driving around an eccentric, wealthy older man who keeps giving away his money. The single mom would rather be home with her son, but it will turn out to be one of the craziest and most incredible nights of her life -- this chauffeur and her passenger will change each other's lives in ways you could never imagine”

(I actually kind of want to watch this one.)

8. Holiday Switch

What It Should Be About: A Jewish family and a Christian family pull a freaky Friday and learn a little about each other’s culture in the process. Henry makes a wish on a Christmas tree, just as Abraham wishes on the menorah and now nothing will ever be the same again. The Johnsons and the Goldbergs have to figure out the true meaning of Christmas and Hanukkah in order to switch back in time for New Years.

What It’s Actually About: “A week before Christmas, Paula finds herself struggling with bills and life with her blue-collar husband Gary and her two daughters. When Nick, her high school boyfriend returns to town, a wealthy art gallery owner, Paula wonders if she made the wrong decision when she took the wrong date to the prom. What would her life have been like if she stayed with Nick?”

(At least mine has the potential to be fun and educational.)

That’s it for this year folks! Thanks for following along on my blogging adventures. If you like what you read, please pass the blog along to your friends. (It’ll be your Christmas gift to me.) See ya in 2013!