I thought it was me: All Hallmark Christmas Movies are Horror Films in Disguise
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My daughters like to watch these movies, and as I would sit in on a few, I came to the conclusion that these are all nasty towns, with many nasty people in them who pretend to be good people.
Here is just a snippet of the article, after which cites three shows as example:
Over the last few years, Hallmark Christmas movies — thinly scripted rom coms based around a truth, universally acknowledged in late November through December, that a single woman committed to her career must be in want of a husband, preferably a hometown widower raising a child already out of diapers — have shifted from cheap purgatory for formerly bankable prime time stars to quasi-ironic centerpieces of the winter comfort-TV binge-scape.
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Overwhelmingly white and Christian, these movies dramatize the attainment, after the requisite miscommunications and crises of faith, of a specific American suburban fantasy that seamlessly blends the following ingredients: a nonthreatening career that never demands evening and weekend work or relocation; a heterosexual marriage to a handsome employed man who values family, with at least one child guaranteed; and a palatial suburban home located within walking distance of one or both sets of parents, surrogate or real.
And yet a recent episode of the podcast "A Very Hallmark Christmas," hosted by Loree Stark and Medium columnist and former i09 editor Rob Bricken, breaks down the many ways in which the Hallmark film "A Veteran's Christmas" veers into barely concealed horror territory. Consume enough of Hallmark's addictive confections and you start to see the horror isn't a one-off, rather it's baked into the entire enterprise: these films are a smorgasbord of gaslighting, emotional abuse, and passive-aggressive forcible confinement, with entire communities conspiring to sabotage competent women into accepting less ambitious, more domesticized roles in which their considerable gifts are only allowed to be used in service of hot widowers and their small towns, to which they will be permanently bound going forward. If the heroine resists, the narrative suggests, she might find herself joining the parade of dead girls who came before her.
As Hallmark's Countdown to Christmas grows more manic and self-aware every year, it's only a matter of time before the network realizes, due to our collective hunger for psychological horror and crime stories, that the terror lurking beneath their cookie-flavored romances is a feature, not a bug. After all, the ingredients are already there. Here are some stock Hallmark Christmas movie scenarios that show how easy — an ominous music cue here, a lingering reaction shot of confusion there — the transition will be.
https://www.salon.com/2018/11/19/all-hallmark-christmas-movies-are-horror-films-in-disguise/
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= new reply since forum marked as read
click through the channels and I see dozens of Christmas movies listed.
"Skipping Christmas" was the teaser that reeled us in.
As that is exactly what we ourselves do every year 
The movie seemed such a refreshing break, at first.
We cheered on the couple with their inspired boycott
of all things Xmas. The (small) town fought back
hard and dirty, we rooted for them to stick to their
brave and noble plan, looking forward to their
tropical cruise getaway from the cold, fake-merriment
of garish Xmas decor laden rows of houses and
the forced fake cheer of the spiteful children
and grim faced adults intent on imposing their
determined will upon the hapless (recently empty
nested) couple.
Then, appeared The Horror, in the form of a simple phone call.
We suddenly realized we'd been had, suckered into
a viewing of something we could not possibly endure
watching any further: A feel good morality lesson on
the true meaning of...
Sorry, I'm gagging. Can't say it.
Besides, Allen's acting chemistry was painfully absent
juxtaposed against the always brilliant ms Curtis' skills.
So...
We switched over to "Kim's Convenience," an
awesome Netflix show. And enjoyed the salvaged evening.
