The new holiday tradition involves Ashley Williams & Hallmark
It's the holiday season which means dinners, family get-togethers, long nights, lazy days, and overly sweet Hallmark movies.
My mom got me hooked on these. Before the Pandemic, I was like most people. I rolled my eyes and endured the same old story of corporate girl returning to her home town to buy the local tree farm, only to be swept off her feet by the current manager who was also her childhood crush.
And now, well, now I'm rolling and giggling at the absurd sweetness. Hallmark movies are like the cozy mysteries of Murder She Wrote without the murder. You know what you're getting each and every time.
Cavity-creating, candy-coated camp.
It also means the current queen (in my opinion) of Hallmark movies, Ashley Williams, will be gracing our screens on the regular. When she comes on, you know you're in for some sweet stories with an underlying streak of coyness.
A fun game is coming into the middle of one of her movies and trying to guess the plot. After so many Hallmark shows, you can get surprisingly close on the first go. It's great.
And this isn't a bad thing. I mentioned camp earlier, and I think this is the strength of Ashley Williams' work in these films. She seems to be having fun and not taking herself seriously. She's taking the role serious. She's delivering, but I don't feel that she's above the stories or bringing unnecessary weight to them.
She has her tongue firmly in cheek and saying let's go on this weird story together. It's the holidays, things are rough, take a load off and let me entertain you. It's going to be ridiculous, and it's going to be fun. And it will probably be over the top.
With the explosion of media and the drowning out of network tv, it can feel like our traditions of holiday watching has vanished. There's no longer the marking of the season by Charlie Brown and Garfield specials, but Hallmark fills that gap.
And Ashley Williams is a welcome constant to these films that makes it that much more comforting.
According to the list on Hallmark Channel, she's been in 17 films since 2015! I counted. Hallmark should just have a scorecard at the top of each actor's page, honestly. These are things people want to know!
