What if the First Christmas was a Hallmark Movie?

What if the first Christmas, the story of the birth of Jesus, was pitched to the executives who make cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies? Well, it might go a little something like this…

Pitch Meeting: The First Christmas

SCENE: Hallmark Christmas Industrial Complex Headquarters Writer’s Room. Three Hallmark Executives are meeting with their newest writer.

Mel: Well, we can’t thank you enough for meeting with us. Belle, Caspar, this is Gabriel, our newest writer.

Belle: (reaching to shake Gabriel’s hand) Belle Tazar, nice to meet you.

Caspar: Caspar Wiseman III, pleased to know you.

Mel: And of course, you know me, Mel Chior. (to Belle and Caspar) Gabriel here has a pitch for us for new Christmas movie, ain’t that right, Gabe?

Gabriel: Yes, sir. I call it First Christmas.

Belle: LOVE that it has “Christmas” in the title.

Gabriel: Um, thanks. It’s about a woman named Mary and her fiancé Joseph who find out—

Belle: Are you sure you want them engaged at the start of the movie? Usually that’s a third-act thing.

Gabriel: Oh, well, they are going to start off engaged. You see, Joseph finds out Mary is pregnant and—

Mel: Whoa, whoa, whoa, let me stop you right there. We don’t *do* pregnant here.

Caspar: Babies are…complicated. They’re on our “no” list.

Belles: Babies are messy.

Gabriel: Well, the baby is kind of the whole p—

Belle: Wait, what if Joseph only *thinks* Mary is pregnant. That could set up our dramatic misunderstanding.

Caspar: You know all of our movies have to have a dramatic misunderstanding. That’s where the drama comes from!

Mel: Oh, great idea, Belle. He could overhear a conversation where he thinks someone just said Mary was pregnant, only he was talking about someone else.

Caspar: Or, even better, hear me out, he can use the bathroom in Mary’s house and find a pregnancy test in her trash can and think its hers but it’s really someone else’s!

Belle: I LOVE it!

Gabriel: Isn’t that kind of an obvious trope, though?

Belle: *Classic* trope. Please go on. So Joseph thinks Mary is pregnant and—

Gabriel: But she really is pregnant.

Mel: Wait a minute, how old are these two? I’m just wondering for casting purposes. Not that it matters, we only have four actors, but I just want to know if this will work for them.

Caspar: We have to make sure it is in their range. Which isn’t very big.

Gabriel: They are teenagers.

Caspar: Nope, nope, nope, nope. Nope. You’re going to need to age them up a bit.

Gabriel: But—

Mel: Pregnant teenagers? I mean, what do you think this is, Gabriel, MTV? We don’t do that here. Age them up. They are early 30-somethings.

Gabriel: That kind of ruins the whole story, though.

Belle: And what does Mary do for a living? I’m picturing a high-powered executive in the big city who yearns for a simpler life in a small town.

Gabriel: Well, no, she already lives in a small town, Nazareth.

Caspar: What if she owned a bakery? We haven’t done a bakery in, let’s see here, five movies.

Gabriel: She doesn’t own a bakery!

Caspar: What about Joseph, does he own a bakery?

Gabriel: No!

Caspar: Does anybody in this movie own a bakery?

Gabriel: I don’t think so.

Mel: Well, then what exactly does Joseph do?

Gabriel: He’s a carpenter.

Belle: A custom-home builder.

Gabriel: What?

Belle: He’s a custom-home builder. I’m thinking something of a Chip and Joanna Gaines aesthetic.

Mel: And Mary can think he’s a simple but generically sexy builder but he’s really the owner of the company and super-rich!

Caspar: Now we’re cooking with fire!

Gabriel: No, no, no. They’re both actually quite poor.

Caspar: Oh boy, there we go again. Another word on the “no” list.

Mel: We don’t *do* poor. Too complicated.

Belle: Poverty is too messy.

Caspar: We’re going for simple escapism, here. We don’t want our viewers to have to worry about our main characters’ money problems.

Gabriel: I know, but I thought—

Belle: Don’t think too hard about this. All the movie needs to have are two generically-attractive people who fall in love and a Christmas tree. So what happens next?

Gabriel: They have to travel to Bethlehem so that—

Belle: Ooh, a road trip! I smell hijinks galore!

Mel: I see a fun road trip disaster montage. You know, getting locked out of the car, running out of gas, getting lost, fighting over directions…

Belle: Could be some great comic relief. Where are they going again?

Gabriel: Bethlehem.

Caspar: I’m picturing Bethlehem as a small town with old-fashioned values that has a major Christmas tree lighting every year. Where is it?

Gabriel: Palestine.

Mel: Nope. Make it upstate New York.

Gabriel: But it’s in Palestine.

Belle: Palestine is too political. Politics are messy.

Mel: Way too complicated.

Belle: We don’t want people thinking about the real world.

Gabriel: But–

Belle: What about small-town Vermont? People LOVE Christmas movies set in Vermont.

Caspar: I was thinking something vaguely midwestern. We could get a few jokes about how “Midwest nice” these small-towners are.

Mel: We can figure that out later after we see which of our seven sets are available for filming. OK, Gabe, so what happens in Bethlehem?

Gabriel: Well, they try to find a room at an inn but—

Belle: An INN! You know I love an inn. People LOVE Christmas movies set in an inn.

Gabriel: But there’s no room so they have to stay in a stable.

Mel: In a what?

Gabriel: A stable. You know, a barn.

Belle: I LOVE a barn. Oh, I just love a snow-covered barn at Christmas. And since Joseph is a custom home builder, he can surprise Mary by renovating it and turning it into their first home!

Caspar: An old-style New England barn turned into a Magnolia-style house? Perfection!

Mel: I can hear my wallet filling with cash. What’s next, Gabes?

Gabriel: Well, Mary gives birth and—

Mel: Oh, you are really married to the baby thing, aren’t you?

Gabriel: Yes, the baby is kind of the whole p—

Caspar: Didn’t we decide to do the wrong pregnancy test trope? I specifically remember deciding that.

Mel: Seriously, Gabes, you have two poor, unmarried teens having a baby and you want us to put this on Hallmark? Lifetime wouldn’t even make your movie. *Lifetime*.

Belle: No, I think we should make it so they get engaged once Joseph shows Mary the barn he just renovated into their first house.

Mel: WAIT. What if they got engaged at the town’s annual tree lighting? And then what if they got married at the inn and then moved into their beautifully renovated snow-covered barn-house right after to spend their—wait for it—First Christmas together.

Belle: I think I hear a movie title!

Mel: I think I hear my wallet getting fatter!

Belle: And then Mary can finally live her dream of opening a bakery in small-town Vermont.

Caspar: And to think, Gabe, you wanted to have a baby in this thing. You’ve got a lot to learn about how we do things here.

Gabriel: BUT THE BABY IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE MOVIE!

[Mel, Belle, and Caspar stare at Gabriel in silence]

Mel: (after a beat, to Belle and Caspar) Hey, do you think we could get the girl who played Gretchen Weiners in Mean Girls to play Mary?

 

Hey thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please share it with a friend! My last blog finally answered the question, “Mary, Did You Know?” You should check it out. You can also find me on Facebook.