It Looks a Lot Like Christmas

By Chester Campbell

Even the weather has cooperated lately. Our spring-like temperatures gave way to downright wintry conditions last week. The mercury dropped well below the freezing mark and the wind made it feel much. Crowds are pouring into the mall and shopping bags are proliferating. Of course, none of this has to do with the real spirit of Christmas.

To me, the real spirit of Christmas is embodied in things like Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men and Joy to the World. I think it's all embodied in one word—Love.

That's the theme of  the Hallmark channel's Countdown to Christmas, a series of mostly original movies that run day and night, each one repeated at least a couple of times. My wife is a longtime Hallmark channel watcher. A couple of weeks ago, she started recording a lot of the Countdown to Christmas movies. Each one is two hours long, including seemingly limitless commercials, but we can view one in an hour and a half using the fast-forward button. We must have recorded at least two dozen so far and have watched half that many.

We turn them on mostly at night, though occasionally we'll see one in daylight. If you're looking for a way to get into the Christmas spirit, this should do it. They have titles such as Pete's Christmas, Snow Bride, A Very Merry Mix-Up, The Christmas Ornament and Catch a Christmas Star. We just scrolled through the channel schedule picking one here and there to record. We got blindsided by one titled Love's Christmas Journey. It was listed twice in the schedule, which I took to mean it was being repeated right after showing the first time. But when we got to the end of the recording, it said "To Be Continued."

Bummer. When I looked up the movie at the Hallmark website, it showed Part II followed Part I. Fortunately, both segments were repeated this morning from 2 to 4 and 4 to 6. So we now have the second half to watch.

I've seen more movies in the past few days than I have in the last ten years. It hasn't done much for my current writing project, but it's a great way to get into the Christmas spirit.

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