The Christmas Consultant

Let's face it - there's only so much Christmas stuff to go around. I never get sick of the classics, of course, but for addicts like me, there's never been enough new material to keep up with my insatiable demand. That is, until I discovered the wealth of cheesy Christmas movies that are cranked out each year by basic cable stations like ABC Family, The Hallmark Channel, and (my personal favorite) Lifetime.

As I've mentioned before, each one follows a time-tested formula - a delicious recipe, like your grandma's egg nog. Arguably the most important ingredient is the c-list celebrity, and The Christmas Consultant, which kicks off this year's Cavalcade, has got a doozy - David motherflippin' Hasselhoff (It's also got TV's Caroline Rhea, but who cares).

Ms. Rhea plays a frazzled working woman who has no time for the holidays (a staple of any cable Christmas movie), yet must host an elaborate Christmas party to impress a potential client. In order to accomplish this she hires Owen, the titular Consultant, who spends the entire month of December immersing the family in Christmas spirit in a ridiculous, over-the-top way that only the Hoff could pull off.

Don't get me wrong - like most made-for-cable Christmas movies, this one is dumb. Really dumb. But Hasselhoff is allowed to do what he does best, and that's running around like a goddamn nutjob. Plus, I can kind of identify with his character's bottomless enthusiasm for the season, and frankly I'm a little jealous of his job. Except the part at the end when Caroline Rhea kicks his ass at the Christmas party. Apparently she thinks he's hogging all the credit for the party and making her family like him more than her, even though he has done all the work and of course her family has grown to prefer the lovable Christmas lunatic over the career-obsessed shrew.

This being what it is, everything is wrapped up with a nice little bow by the end. In a twist everyone can see coming a mile away, it turns out [SPOILER ALERT!] that the family that Owen awkwardly refers to throughout the movie has been dead for years. This knowledge melts Caroline Rhea's bitchy heart, and he is invited to spend Christmas at her place.

No matter what ingredients you use - a charming small town, an American city that looks suspiciously like Toronto, public domain Christmas music, an unlikely romance, a precocious child, a magical Santa-like character, etc. - the final product is always the same: The Perfect Christmas™. It may be sickeningly sweet or extra cheesy, but it's what basic cable does best. Well, that and Road House marathons.