[PREVIEW] Welcome To The Netflix Holiday Cinematic Universe

A glamorous romance author tries to buy a Scottish castle from a grumpy duke. Not one, but two L.A. writers travel to the frosty East to spend Christmas with a prospective lover’s family, only to encounter a himbo who throws a spanner in the works. A foxy noblewoman joins forces with her childhood sweetheart, now a private security expert, to recover a stolen Vatican relic — and her relationship with the identical cousin whose throne she tried to steal.This is what Christmas in the Netflix holiday-romcom-verse looks like: Everyone is beautiful, everyone is ready to finally have someone to love at the holidays, and the plots range from classic (boring) to utterly unhinged. We watched four of Netflix’s new romances — “Love Hard,” “Single All the Way,” “A Castle for Christmas,” and “The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star” — for a quadruple-feature podcast in which we break down our favorite parts of each movie, ruthlessly mock our least favorite parts, and revel in the holiday spirit. Plus, for a more wide-ranging breakdown, Claire binged the platform’s 2021 Christmas movie slate and wrote about that surprisingly overwhelming experience for Thrillist. Merry Christmas to those who observe, and a restful week to all! xoGive a gift subscriptionWe’ve been reading…Amanda Gorman’s gorgeous book of poetry, “Call Us What We Carry.” No surprise it was an instant NYTime bestseller. -Emma“Harrow” by Joy Williams (finally finished Sunday while fending off a toddler), a climate/existential crisis novel featuring a woman who perhaps came back from the dead when she was an infant, or perhaps was never born, and a 10-year-old judge named Jeffrey. It’s weird and disturbing and very worth reading.Also, started “The Days of Afrekete” by Asali Solomon! It’s been a minute since her debut, the coming-of-age novel “Disgruntled,” and her latest opens on a frazzled Philadelphia hostess wondering whether to cancel her dinner party (for which she did buy the flowers herself) after hearing that her husband, who recently lost his first bid for office, likely will be indicted by the FBI. Consider me hooked! -ClaireWe’ve been watching…I tore through Prime’s original holiday rom-com series, “With Love.” Gloria Calderón Kellett’s 5-episode miniseries follows a Latinx family over the course of a year, zeroing in on various members’ romantic triumphs and tribulations. (The series starts and ends around Christmas.) It’s joyful and sweet and prioritizes representation in a way that feels earned and natural rather than shoe-horned. Highly recommend. -EmmaWe’re finally starting season 2 of “The Great,” the first season of which defined an epoch in our household’s nightly pandemic routine of dinner-and-an-episode-of-some-TV-show. The mercurial violence has not abated much, though enlightened Catherine (Elle Fanning) is in the process of winning her coup against her brutish husband and emperor, Peter (Nicholas Hoult), but neither have the quippy and incredibly vulgar dialogue, the comedy of political maneuvers both brilliant and foolish, and the absolutely mouth-watering costumes. -Claire We’ve been listening to…My latest podcast binge is “A Death In Cryptoland,” a CBC podcast which investigates the sudden death of Gerald Cotten, the young CEO of Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. When he died in 2018, he left a quarter of a billion dollars completely inaccessible to the people who had invested. (And naturally set off a wild string of conspiracy theories.) The pod came out in June, but I’m really enjoying it in December — especially as someone who is a total crypto neophyte. -EmmaThis week, it’s my turn to be all about Christmas music. I also listened to the latest episode of “Know Your Enemy,” a longstanding fave in my rotation, in which hosts Sam Adler-Bell and Matt Sitman talk to rising right-wing intellectual star Nate Hochman. Like most rising right-wing intellectual stars, he’s 23, drowning in conservative grants, and when he’s really pressed on any of the cruel and violent policies he lends his support to, just starts complaining about how people being too “woke” really gets on his nerves. The hosts do try to press Hochman, at least toward the latter half of the podcast, but I was left with no less doubt than I had before about the value of these kinds of conversations between the right and the left: it gave them an opportunity to chat amiably about their shared horror at the hypocrisies and failings of the liberal establishment, and no one wanted to ruin the vibe by going for the jugular when Hochman casually referred to, for example, the “corrosive” effect of “transgenderism” on our society. This episode stuck with me more than most, though, maybe because the desire to find a way out of our current hell through real, humane, open-minded conversation with our opposition is such an eternal and ever-frustrating one. When one actually tries, it often gets one absolutely fucking nowhere. -Claire We’ve been buying…I swear this is not an ad, more like a skincare PSA, but I cannot stop raving about August + Monroe’s 3-in-1 Blemish Camouflage. This product was aggressively advertised to me on IG for months before I finally caved and bought it after a friend did the same, and I couldn’t be happier that I did. It works as both a spot treatment, a primer AND a coverup! And the coolest part about it is that when you rub it in, pigment-bursting beads match whatever your skin tone is! I have acne-prone skin, and to have a product that both covers up spots and simultaneously treats them is truly game-changing. -EmmaA Christmas tree!!! This is our first Christmas tree since having a kid, and it was a tiny bit of a mess (it took forever to identify a good spot in the apartment to put one; we never had enough time to actually go get one; once I found the perfect tree another buyer snapped it up while I had my back turned; poor Greg, who doesn’t even celebrate Christmas, had to carry our consolation conifer 10 blocks while pushing the stroller because our son cries hysterically if I push it instead). BUT. But. Then I put it up in front of our window, and we played Christmas standards while I draped string lights. The toddler helped me put on my favorite ornaments; he’s old enough now to be impressed by an actual tree covered in lights being in our apartment all of a sudden. As evening fell, the whole living room smelled like pine needles and cheer. (Letter of recommendation: making your home smell like a winter forest.) We’re not sure what the rest of our holiday season will look like, thanks to Covid, but at least we have the tree. -Claire