Christmas is traditionally a time for giving and when it comes to the streaming services that have become a symbiotic part of our households over recent years, that giving is usually us giving monthly fees. But as we head into the silly season, the giving comes back to us threefold in the form of the Christmas movie.
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Once reserved for a handful of action films set at Christmas, like Lethal Weapon, Gremlins and the Die Hard films, the streamers seem to be multiplying yule-themed films like they grow them in a hot-house during the year.
Between the Stans, Amazons, Netflixes and Disneys, there are more than a dozen new Christmas films released this season.
But as Hollywood's once-great, once-cute, once-popular stars discover what dependable annual income the Christmas film can be, we get blessed with an increasingly star-powered set of Santa-centric films to comfort us over the holiday season.
The greatest star of all - a decade ago - is Lindsay Lohan and she is back these holidays, on her fourth or fifth attempt at a career rehabilitation, in the silly and sweet Falling for Christmas (Netflix).
Lohan stars as hashtag-blessed social media influencer and heiress Sierra Belmont, brought to one of her dad's (Jack Wagner from Melrose Place) many hotels to let some of her fame bolster its fortunes, but who gets blown off a snowy clifftop moments after her boyfriend Tad (George Young) proposes. At the bottom of that cliff is struggling single dad Jake (Chord Overstreet from Glee) who takes a now amnesiac heiress into his home where she learns the joys of cleaning and wearing man-made fibres.
I won't use the phrase "rip-off", so I'll describe Falling for Christmas as an homage to Goldie Hawn's Overboard. An almost scene-for-scene homage.
I hope these Christmas films work out for Lindsay. Her talent got massively overshadowed by her behaviour in her hard-drinking post-teen years, and I'd like to think as she heads into her late 30s, she's got it together and we can all support her by giving Netflix our eyeballs.
Stan has invested in local production this year with the Aussie charmer Christmas Ransom starring the affable Matt Okine as the owner of a toy store trying to honour his father's old-school legacy (they don't stock video games) but barely keeping the doors open.
Okine's Derrick and his shop assistant Pete (Ed Oxenbould) are held hostage by the gun-toting Nan (Genevieve Lemon) and Shez (Bridie McKim) hoping to extract a ransom from Derrick's millionaire video game entrepreneur sister Terri (Vivienne Awosoga).
Here to save the day is Derrick's heavily pregnant security guard Gladys (Miranda Tapsell), something like Bruce Willis's reluctant hero of the Die Hard films, only very, very pregnant.
Christmas Ransom is sweet, silly fun, with just the right amount of fart jokes for a family film, but for me its biggest gift is that the filmmakers have made an Australian film without feeling the need to put some third-tier American or British former star in the cast. It's about time we lost the cultural cringe, and so well done to the Christmas Ransom producers.
Stan has been building a collection of Christmas films devoid of those Northern Hemisphere snow-covered yule-time tropes with the Aussie-centric films A Sunburnt Christmas and Christmas on the Farm in recent years.
But if it is snow and mistletoe and icy driveways and fluffy earmuffs you're yearning for in your Christmas films, the streaming services have you covered.
Onetime One Tree Hill teen heartthrob Chad Michael Murray is 40 now and seems to have embraced the steady pay cheque the Christmas films bring in, starting with the hard-to-watch Too Close for Christmas (Netflix) where he is the handsome oaf Paul whose big mouth was responsible for the breakup of Hayley's (Jessica Lowndes) last relationship.
Paul's brother is married to Hayley's sister and so despite her residual anger, they have to spend a whole Christmas together.
Jessica Lowndes is pretty much a full-time Christmas film heroine. She's played Elizabeth Bennet in the definitely-not-approved-by-Jane-Austen Christmas at Pemberley Manor, but here I think she's the victim of some pretty lazy writing. Her character is so consistently passive-aggressively awful to Paul that by the time their happy ending comes around, you want to call in some professional psychologists for the poor bloke.
Chad Michael Murray and Lowndes might be the Harry and Meghan of Christmases future, because you can also find them in Angel Falls Christmas (Netflix).
Other big names putting some cinnamon in your eggnog this Christmas include Asa Butterfield in Your Christmas or Mine (Amazon Prime), Freddy Prinze Jr in Christmas with You (Netflix) and the double-whammy of Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds in Spirited (Apple+), while Marvel pays homage to the old Star Wars Holiday Special with The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (Disney).
For the grown-ups, the wicked Violent Night is still playing in cinemas, but on the small screen there's the murderous rampage of a malfunctioning animatronic Santa in Christmas Bloody Christmas (Amazon Prime).
Some people might be dreaming of a white Christmas, but I'm personally looking forward to Christmas on my couch, with my dog, and the chance to finally work my way through my "My List" queue on Netflix. Happy holidays everybody!
