Thread by @betaraycarrie

I've been watching a lot of bad Hallmark-style Christmas films over the past few weeks and I've worked out the precise formula.

1. You take the plot of the movie Cars, and replace the vehicles with people. This works for 80% of the films in the genre.

2. The Lightning McQueen character is a woman called Holly.

3. If, in the first ten minutes, she says:
a) "I'm about to make Partner";
b) "My career is more important than my relationship right now"; or
c) "I don't have time to date";
then she will have quit her job by the end of the film and her former assistant will have her old job.

4. If she's a city girl, then she will come to realise that the city is shallow and unfulfilling and will move to the film's version of Radiator Springs for good.

5. One of the film's central couple is an aunt or uncle to a recently orphaned child, or a long-widowed single parent who's ready to love again.

6. A minimum of one of the main characters is probably a member of the Claus family.

7. The kid will at one point say "You like him, don't you? He likes you. I can tell." (NB: genders of pronouns may be flipped.)

8. Is that Steve Gutenberg? No, but it looks a lot like him.

9. Is that Alicia Witt? Surprisingly often.

10. The central relationship will evolve to the next stage in a scene set either at an ice skating rink or while shopping for Christmas trees.

11. The dialogue in the tree-shopping scene will include the exchange:
"We're looking for exactly the right tree."
"What do you mean, the right tree? They all look the same."
"There's a trick to it."

And finally

12. The only thing whiter than the landscape is the cast.

Now you are armed with these 12 simple steps, you too can produce 90 minutes of holiday joy to fill a gap in Christmas24's schedule!

Addendum: It also helps if your film can feature a song that's a close rip-off of an existing Christmas hit.