I Have No Interest In an Un-Horny Holiday Movie

Sure, the holidays are about family and friends, but they’re also about fucking. Because it’s not only Christmas season, it’s also Cuffing season, and I simply have no tolerance for holiday moves that don’t understand and embrace that key element of this very specific time of year.

I recently decided to watch Holly Star, a cute 2018 Christmas movie that found its way to Netflix just a few weeks ago. Was it my fault that I didn’t pay close attention to the PG rating? Maybe. Or is it this movie’s fault for only giving me a teeny, tiny peck between the two main characters at the very end, after clearly ignoring their chemistry as it bubbled up throughout the entire film? I think we both know who I truly blame here.

Katlyn Carlson stars as Sloan, a woman who has just been laid off from her job as a puppeteer (cool points for that profession) and returns home for the holidays, only to discover her parents aren’t even around. So instead she hangs out with her grandmother who lives at the nursing home and her best friend who loves paintball. While she spends more of the movie hunting down what she believes is buried treasure her late grandfather left behind than flirting with the guy she’s known since she was a kid (Brian Muller), I still thought the latter part would provide the better payoff. Major spoiler alert here, but they’re kind of the same thing, and both prove to be a letdown. It’s a bummer because Carlson is a good leading lady here and Muller is totally hot in that dude-you-grew-up-with way. But then all that happens, after he bumbles and stumbles and can’t seem to share his true feelings, and when she finally does by admitting, “All I can think about right now is how much I want to kiss you” (while they sit in his car at a freakin’ drive-in movie theater!), is he tells her “go for it.” Let’s be clear, consent is always sexy, but the kiss they share here is not more than a peck, and then the movie cuts away to the final scene where she has a snowball fight with her bestie and not even this dude. Seriously? You can’t give us some tongue?! They’ve had crushes on each other for years and this is all we get? Now, I’m not saying I need an X-rated version but put in a little more of the passion and romance this season ignites in people, especially two we just watched declare some feelings for each other. He was her treasure, the least she can do is slip in some tongue.

Between the holiday parties and the dreamy snowflakes and whatever it is that the cold weather does to us biologically, it is ridiculous to not acknowledge that this time of year turns people on. Luckily, Netflix’s latest holiday offering, The Knight Before Christmas does understand this. Vanessa Hudgens stars as Brooke, a woman so single her niece is using her precious time with Santa to ask him to bring her a boyfriend. Little does she know, one has just been transported from the 1300s! Sir Cole (Josh Whitehouse) arrives in a full suit of armor, but it only takes the movie 20 minutes to show him shirtless with a towel wrapped around his waist and his torso glistening from the shower. Okay, now we’re talking! While this one is rated TV-14, it knows how to be subtly sexy: the way he puts a blanket over her when she falls asleep, the way he chops down a tree with only one whack, when he Ghost-s her in the good way, by standing behind her to help her knead bread. The tension is building without being overtly sexual. This is what the people need! Give us a tumble in the snow, an almost-kiss, the flirty glances, some indication that these two are feeling the tingle bells just the way we are at home!

The holidays are a time for celebrating how we each choose to do so, but this is the reason why I have largely stayed away from Hallmark movies. I know there are millions of them and I’m sure many are delightful in their own ways. But I also know they are for the whole family, and I’m looking for something that’s just a little freakier than that. What this all comes back to is the fact that The Holiday is the perfect (holiday) movie. Of course Cameron Diaz bones Jude Law right away. Look at him. She doesn’t even need to know about Mr. Napkinhead yet to know she wants a piece of that. It would be totally weird if she waited any longer than she did (which was not very long). Plus, there’s just enough flirtiness between Kate Winslet and Jack Black to be sweet but also slightly suggestive. The perfect Christmas movie is one that is sweet and sentimental but also dripping with romance and polite sexiness, and if that doesn’t describe this Nancy Meyers classic then I don’t know what does. The fact that The Rewatchables podcast pointed out that The Holiday fast-forwards right through Christmas Day, only makes this movie that much better! The days before and after Christmas are for sex, but Christmas Day is for Santa. It’s sacred.

I’m not trying to be a ho, ho, ho here, or asking Santa for a Christmas porn (though I’m sure that already exists on the internet anyway). All I’m saying to you, the creators of Christmas movies, the people we appreciate so much at this time of year, is just remember from time to time to get those chestnuts roasting, is all.

Where to stream Holly Star