After getting out of routine with the Thanksgiving holiday, this past week has been about struggling to remember what day of the week it actually is. Writing, therefore, has been a little more difficult, so most of my free time has been spent reading to give my mind a chance to settle and stop going in twelve different directions.

I have been productive in other areas though! My Christmas tree is already up, only two gifts are left on my list to find, and the others are all wrapped. Maybe getting a jump on that will help me focus more on writing the rest of the month. I certainly hope so. I briefly got to chat with someone about my project a couple of days ago, and it got me all hyped up to get it done (a tip for those of you with writer friends: even though we might act weird and awkward about we really do enjoy talking about our work).

On a different subject, I would like to ask if anyone knows why the T.V. movies this time of year feel like they can slap something vaguely Christmas related in the title and get away with a plot that would absolutely be shredded any other time of year. I’m not talking about the Christmas magic ones—I can suspend disbelief for Santa or holiday-wish related hijinks, or A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life adaptations. Part of the fun of this time of year are those cheesy, feel-good films.

No, I’m talking about the truly nonsense ones, like the commercial I just saw for something called No Sleep ‘Til Christmas on Freeform. From what the commercial indicated, the plot follows a man and a woman, both suffering from insomnia, who can only sleep when they are together. Granted, I have not seen it, but what does that have to do with Christmas, aside from the title? I’m sorry, but we cannot expect the viewing public to accept every thinly constructed plot just because you set it in December. Even cheesy Christmas movies have standards.