Can Christmas Be Far Away?
I was quite busy last week and took Thursday off as a “MY” Day. I vowed not to clean, cook or write and, since I had nothing really pressing to do, I settled into my living room recliner to treat myself to a movie. You see, I do not care for daytime television except for morning news and Jeopardy!
While surfing the networks, guess what I found on the Hallmark channel? A brand new Hallmark Christmas movie just released for 2021! Already? It is only August.
I knew the usual story-line so I opted for Netflix. But, this gave cause for me to consider a new column idea. This is what my ditsy brain came up with and I will try to make it readable. What if Hallmark started making movies for all holidays? Here is one that I considered…
“Easter Magic”
The setting: A mythical village called Eggville in Fayette County, Texas. The movie begins with captivating scenes of bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush and other wildflowers bursting into bloom along the hills and valleys of the beautiful Central Texas landscape.
The plot: Oh no! The annual Easter Parade and Easter Egg Hunt in the close-knit town of Eggville are in peril. Ladies look forward to the parade all year long, carefully planning their bonnets while all children look forward to the Easter egg hunt in hopes of finding the handpainted Special Egg decorated with bluebonnets and winning the big prize … a trip to nearby Splash City.
However, this year a developer bought the riverside park where the two are held and wants to build a fancy hotel. WOE are the citizens of Eggville. Gavin is the developer’s rep, and Melanie is an artist and widowed mom whose hand-painted eggs and bonnet creations are the highlights of the annual event. The two initially butt heads, but then there are sparks of another kind.
Just two days before Gavin is to go to the title company to close the deal, his shallow-as-heck ex-girlfriend appears on the scene, using all her crafty wiles to get Gavin back—especially since, after all, Gavin is not just the developer’s rep… he is actually the well-heeled, incognito developer. (Dramatic background music begins to swell)
But Gavin sees the golddigger for what she is and realizes his love for Melanie, her precocious one-liner-dealing kids, the town and its park and that’s that.
Rather than being deepsixed, the park will be re-landscaped and made larger to draw crowds of people from all over Texas. And this will all be finished just in time for Easter!
At movie’s end, Gavin embraces Melanie and gives her a brief, chaste kiss, then gifts her with “flow globe.” It is like a snow globe except it depicts a spring scene with tiny bluebonnet florets floating down on the village. An orchestral offering from harps and strings softly play Irving Berlin’s “Easter Parade” as the high school choir suddenly appears on the town square singing,
“In your Easter bonnet
With all the frills upon it…”
The music surges to a crescendo in the background just as the words, “The End” appear on the screen. Now, you look for the premier of this movie on Easter Eve, 2022.
Okay?
Brenda Miles is an awardwinning columnist and author who lives in Hot Springs Village. She responds to all e-mail at brenstar@att.net