Publisher’s Letter

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Here’s a game to play with your family this holiday season. Each night, scroll through your TV channels until you reach Hallmark or a similar network that will be showing a near-continuous loop of cheesy Christmas movies. Select a movie title, but don’t look at the plot description or previews. You are only interested in the title to start. The game is this: after saying the title aloud, everyone in the room takes turns coming up with a plot, and the closest to the movie’s actual story wins a prize for that night. Repeat the challenge each evening for a week or so and provide a grand prize of some sort to whomever gets the most plots correct.

Now, it’s in the details where the winners and losers are determined. A significant number of these movies have similar themes. For example, a small-town girl returns home from her high-pressure job in the big city to help run her family’s struggling mom-and-pop business, only to fall in love with an old flame, a person who is single because a wife recently passed away from a terrible illness. That basic plot will get you close to a win, no problem. So, to secure a night’s victory, be sure to include as many specifics as possible, such as the girl, whose name is probably Holly or Kris, works at an ad agency, and her love interest is a humble carpenter with a hidden talent for crafting beautiful, hand-painted nutcrackers.

These movies have a penchant for nutcrackers, evergreen trees farms, toy stores, bakeries, holiday festivals, bed and breakfast inns, mountains, greedy businessmen, classic pickup trucks and red ribbons as decor. Oh, and Candace Cameron Bure, royal princes and characters who may or may not be Santa Claus. So, what stories will come to your mind when you see “A Gingerbread Romance,” “A Dog Named Christmas” or “Meet the Santas” appear on screen? These are all real Hallmark movie names, by the way.

This Christmas, my family will be playing the game. And we’ll probably watch a few of the movies, too. In addition, we’ll do our best to take in the season’s nighttime festivities that are peppered across Northeast Florida. There’s the Nights of Lights in St. Augustine all month long. In Downtown Jax, Christmas in the Cathedral District, with a holiday market and tour of historic churches, is December 3. Dazzling Nights, a nightly light show that winds through the nature trails at the Jacksonville Arboretum & Botanical Gardens, is staged through January 1. And Deck The Chairs (pictured here) has been illuminating the sands of Jacksonville Beach for a decade. Cheesy movies can be fun but the real spirit of the season will be found when venturing off the couch and taking in the literal sights, sounds and scents of Christmas.

As always, thanks for reading. Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. We’ll see you in 2023. u