Are you the red or green Hallmark poster person in your relationship?

Most Hallmark Christmas movie covers feature someone in a red shirt and someone in a green shirt. Which one are you?
Are you and your significant other a heterosexual couple wearing red and green respectively and celebrating the holidays by overcoming a very minor inconvenience? If so, you may be starring in a Hallmark
holiday
Christmas movie. (Given the titles, Hallmark seems hell-bent on keeping their religious values intact).
There are two types of people. Well, there are far more than two types of people, but in Hallmark holiday movies, the world is simplified to red-shirt people and green-shirt people. More often than not, women are dressed in red while men are dressed in green. Occasionally, Hallmark will shock the world and swap the colors. Not often, though. That can be a little too risqué.
The plot of every movie remains relatively the same. The actors will sometimes change and the problems that arise are slightly altered for each story, but the basis of every movie is a couple falling in love over the holiday season, overcoming minor adversity and learning the true meaning of Christmas.
I've updated my Hallmark movie montage with 2019's crop. Poster formula still going strong. pic.twitter.com/om0CQoZ4lu
— Dave Addey (@daveaddey) December 14, 2019
In every one of these stories, there are some constants. Here are a few things you can expect from every Hallmark movie:
- Someone who is very successful (Red Shirt)
- Someone who is looking for love (Green Shirt)
- Friendly neighbors who are a little too involved in someone else’s love life
- A winter activity (skating, skiing, baking cookies, etc.)
- Holiday travel (so hectic!)
- A disapproving parent
- Candace Cameron-Bure (D.J. Tanner, y’all)
- A will they/won’t they moment
- Conveniently placed mistletoe and subsequent perfect first kiss
- Person A is not what person B initially thought!
- “Love”
- Learning the true meaning of Christmas
These are the base layers of cheesy holiday movies that propel a genre that we watch mostly for nostalgic purposes and to get us into the Christmas spirit! Hallmark has capitalized on this.
What has 15 actors, 4 settings, 2 writers and 1 plot line?
— Lloyd Legalist (@LloydLegalist) December 14, 2019
632 Hallmark Christmas movies.
What makes someone a Red Shirt or a Green Shirt, though? Are there trends? Correlations? Is there a certain personality type that wears either color, or does it just make more sense to put the more attractive person in red? Let’s find out.
Green Shirt
Green Shirt is usually an easy-going, well-liked, humble, small-town person who, despite their friends and family’s best efforts, can’t seem to find love. Green Shirt often has a sad back story, was screwed over, divorced, left behind, etc. Even though they are sad and alone during the holidays, they know the Christmas spirit of their small town will lift them up (or something along those lines).
Green Shirt is a hopeless romantic. Falling in love at the holidays is so perfect because magic is in the air! Green Shirt also has the absolute best one-liners. Stuff like, “You can listen to your mind, but you have to follow your heart.” (From Christmas Under Wraps).
Aside from not being able to find love, Green Shirt is often faced with an inconvenient problem right around the holidays. Big business is buying out their town, they can’t get the story they need for the local paper, they want to help all of the local children but just don’t have the time or resources. There’s always a big issue facing their tight-knit community.
Red Shirt
Red Shirt is very goal-oriented. The holiday season is nice, but Red Shirt is too focused on a high-end, high-paying job to have Christmas spirit. Oh, and Red Shirt is SO done with dating! Red Shirt has seen more than a fair share of bad dates. Enough to warrant giving up dating altogether.
Red Shirt is usually a lawyer, doctor, famous person or some form of royalty. Work doesn’t stop during the holidays. Red Shirt, while being a busy bee in a holiday crowd, almost always bumps into someone, holds a prolonged gaze with them, and then carries on with their duties. Little does Red Shirt know that they just met (or re-kindled with) the love of their life.
Red Shirt also saves the day, with the help of Green Shirt’s holiday spirit, of course. Red Shirt then learns the true meaning of Christmas.
Red and green and no in-between
Still not sold? Let’s go through a few of the recent releases:
Check Inn to Christmas
Red Shirt is a high-end lawyer who hasn’t had time to settle down. Green Shirt is a hopeless hometown romantic who wants to help his parents save their inn. Both of their families own inns, and “big tourism” is here to buy them out at Christmas. Red Shirt and Green Shirt band together to help save the family inns (which, honestly, are likely failing anyway). They fall in love and learn the true meaning of Christmas.
Write Before Christmas
Red Shirt is sick of both dating and the holidays. Green Shirt is a sad Chad Michael Murray who thinks he’ll find love by following a Christmas card. Neither has any prospective partners until they are brought together by chance (literally bumping into each other). Green Shirt is no longer lonely. They fall in love and learn the true meaning of Christmas.
Christmas Under Wraps
Red Shirt is a successful doctor who relocates to a place that makes her unhappy (bonus points because she is Candace Cameron Bure). Green Shirt is a hometown guy who enjoys the simple things in life. The two fall in love during the holidays and she probably trades in the opportunity to be a star doctor at a massive medical center to treat frostbite wounds in this tiny, underfunded hospital for the rest of her life. But, they fall in love and learn the true meaning of Christmas.
Catch a Christmas Star
This time, Red Shirt is a budding pop star whose “career is heating up!” She’ll learn the true meaning of Christmas from her high school sweetheart, Green Shirt… you get the point. In the end, they fall in love and learn the true meaning of Christmas.
Which color shirt are you?
Are you very successful? Do you have a great career and/or a chance at a major advancement in the near future? Are you also left feeling empty inside?
You’re a Red Shirt. You have a great job, your finances are in order and you’re the definition of successful. The only thing you need now is to go back to your hometown for Christmas, you know, the one you left behind to be successful, and rekindle an old romance.
The only thing lacking in your life is love, and perhaps a distaste for the holidays for some inexplicable reason. Put your best red shirt on and go marry one of the kids from high school who decided to stay home and help the entire town decorate every Christmas instead of going to college. If you’re lucky, you’ll learn the true meaning of Christmas!
Are you seemingly perfect in every way? Are you a hopeless romantic who has been stuck in a rut since high school? Are you at least six times too handsome to be living in your tiny town or neighborhood?
You’re a Green Shirt. You probably have a lot of issues, but don’t worry, the holiday season is the perfect time to mask those with romantic gestures and good cheer. You wear your heart on the sleeve of your winter jacket, and it shows. So much so that the entire town is usually trying to set you up on a date. It’s the least they could do since you helped them with that minor inconvenience.
To your community, you’re a regular everyday Saint Nick! If only you could find yourself a holly, jolly partner. Don’t worry, someone ultra-successful will come waltzing back into your life at any given moment and together, you’ll learn the true meaning of Christmas.
Related Story. 7 Christmas songs pitched as holiday movies. light
Deep down, we all have a little green and a little red in us. Hallmark holiday movies are like singing competition shows. They can be a fun way to kill time, but they aren’t an accurate representation of real life (and hardly anyone famous ever comes out of them). Enjoy them for what they are worth — a little holiday spirit.
And learning the true meaning of Christmas.