I am not one of those hip Jews who pretends to not be into Santa and good-looking hot chocolate with candy cane themed marshmallows. No, I fully own it: I am a Jew who has hardcore Christmas envy and Christmas lust from afar. I also am a major reality TV dating fan, because are you truly in love if you haven’t found it on National television? I think not! Therefore, I am totes the target audience for HBO MAX’s 12 Dates of Christmas, aka my new Christmas obsession.
In this Christmas friendly reality show, three hot people in a Princess-friendly Austrian mansion look for a love interest to bring home for Christmas. Each date has a Christmas theme, and unlike The Bachelor, where they start from a larger number of contestants and winnow down each week, the show introduces about two new people per week, and the suitors pick their favorite two to continue.
12 Dates of Christmas is literally so amazingly trashy it makes me want to convert to Christianity. These people are looking for LOVE and also CHRISTMAS JOY. This show has all the amazing sassiness and drama of The Bachelor, with the sweet, wholesomeness that comes from a good Hallmark Christmas movie.
Some of the biggest LOLs come from wildly weird entrances of prospective suitors. Instead of being normal and having hot people just show up and introduce themselves to one of the leads as their new suitor, they creep up on them during a romantic date, usually dressed in a weird outfit. The best entrance by far was when a man literally dressed like a snowman and crashed Garret’s date with a hot dude whose name I forget. So scary!
As I hardcore binged this show, I thought to myself: Wow Christmas is so fun! You get to make gingerbread houses from scratch and wear matching reindeer onesies with your love interest and be so overjoyed with the love of Christmas you can’t contain yourself! Also who am I going to bring home for Christmas this year? I so single.” Then I realized 1) I am not Christian and 2) It’s Covid so don’t travel.
If you’re looking for some trashy holiday TV vibes and you like looking at hot people- I highly recommend 12 Dates of Christmas on HBO Max. Happy Belated Christmas y’all!
Catherine Weingarten is a playwright and humor writer based in NYC. SHe’s a bit too obsessed with wedding cake. Twitter: @sarahkaneissexy