For the fourth day of Christmas rom coms, we’re watching my all-time favorite made-for-TV Christmas movie, period.
Made-for-TV holiday movies tend to get a bad rap. It makes sense. Hallmark has found such a solid formula that they create movie after movie without ever deviating from it. It’s always the big city girl going back to her small town to fall for the carpenter while learning the true meaning of Christmas. While it’s cute, it doesn’t make for any stand-out films. Then there’s ABC Family/Freeform’s 12 Dates of Christmas (2011). It took a look at the Hallmark formula and said, no thanks. Which is precisely why I had to add it to the list of 12 Days of Christmas Rom Coms.
12 Dates of Christmas starts on Christmas Eve as Kate makes her way through a department store, dodging last minute shoppers. As a perfume elf spritzes her, she passes out. She awakes and spends the rest of her day pining over her ex and being set up on a blind date, ending the night dissatisfied and alone with her adorable dog. But she falls asleep only to wake up the moment she awoke on the floor of that department store.
That’s right–it’s a Groundhog Day-esque time loop story! For 12 days Kate is going to go through all sorts of torture, growth, and so many cherry chip loafs in order to finally figure out what she’s doing wrong in her life. As a big fan of time loop movies, you can see why this is such a big one for me.
There’s a lot to talk about here, but there’s something that you might only notice if you watch this every year since 2011. As you watch today’s movie, keep an eye out for the inhabitants of the classic “12 Days of Christmas” song. They’re often hidden in plain site, popping up during each relived Christmas Eve, but they can also be difficult to find.
For instance, as she falls asleep on that first night, she has the TV on a home shopping channel where they’re selling a “beautiful” partridge in a pear tree pendant. Another day they have a boy jumping with a 10 on his jersey, a nod to “10 lords a-leaping.” It’s a fun little Easter egg hunt that you could even turn into a drinking game. The first to spot each allusion to the “12 Days of Christmas” has to take a swig of the spiced eggnog.
