About this episode
Barbara is newly retired and really into keeping the house clean. She decides to join a Christmas committee. The meeting is supposed to start at 9:00 AM, but when she arrives, no one is there. Ten minutes later, the group leader, Cath, shows up and says, “Oh yeah, it’s a flexible 9.” The rest of the committee arrives, and they’re quite the characters. Barbara is clearly annoyed by this fly-by-night committee. When the opportunity arises for her to head up the committee budget, she jumps at it, but she’s shocked to discover that Cath has just been keeping the receipts in a literal shoebox. We meet Barbara’s son, Shane. She thinks he is lonely, so she wants to find him a date for the holidays using an app called Holiday Matchmaker, which she signs him up for without his approval. Then we meet Cath’s daughter, Lauren, and wouldn’t you know it, her mom also signed her up for the same dating app. They end up getting paired together. Lauren and Shane meet for coffee, but it doesn’t start well. Shane overhears Lauren talking to a friend, complaining about going on a blind date her mother set her up for. However, they end up hitting it off while discussing their mothers. Shane tells Lauren he plans to sell his theater business, but he’s feeling super stressed. To keep their mothers off their backs, they agree to pretend to date for the holidays. Unfortunately, both moms want to meet their children’s special someone. They decide to meet at a Christmas festival, and they’re both clearly disappointed that their kids ended up together. They conclude that the only logical thing to do is sabotage the relationship. So Barbara and Cath quickly devise a plan to break them up. After learning that Shane isn’t very handy, Cath has an idea: invite him to help pick out a Christmas tree with her and Lauren, forcing Shane to figure out how to get the tree on the car himself. However, the plan backfires when Shane and Lauren end up failing together. When they finally get the tree home, they discover there’s a rat inside. Shane is terrified of the rat, but Cath asks him to get it out, which he does, impressing Lauren. Plan failed. Next, Barbara comes up with another idea: invite Lauren to one of Shane’s shows. She hopes Shane will get upset if he thinks Lauren is pushing for the relationship to work. Plus, Lauren has bad stage fright, so when Shane invites her on stage for a quirky improv Christmas Carol, Barbara is excited. To her surprise, Lauren ends up having fun and is really impressed with the show. When their plans don’t work, Barbara climbs through a window to convince the volunteer playing Santa to come out after he locks himself in a room because he’s scared. Cath and Barbara work together to encourage him to get out there. They realize they make a pretty good team and need to work together to break up these two lovebirds. They decide to start hanging out, acting like they love each other, and really push this “big happy family” narrative in hopes of freaking Shane and Lauren out. However, they notice that Shane and Lauren might actually be good for each other—Lauren encourages Shane to go all in on theater, and he helps her step out of her comfort zone. While on a trolley, singing Christmas carols, Shane and Lauren both admit they’re actually falling for each other and agree to go to the Christmas Ball together. Barbara finds out that the relationship is fake but assumes it’s one-sided to get her off Shane’s back. She tells Cath, who gets really mad and advises Lauren to break things off with Shane because he’s a bad guy. At the ball, everything comes to a head when Barbara and Cath confront Lauren and Shane about the fake relationship. Lauren freaks out and ends things with Shane due to all the drama. Barbara and Cath start arguing at the ball, and Barbara quits the committee. Barbara’s husband, who hates being around her during this turmoil, encourages her to fix things with Cath. They make up and decide to work together to get Shane and Lauren back together. Cath shows up at Lauren’s workplace to apologize for meddling, and Barbara does the same with Shane. Lauren and Shane decide to give their relationship another chance, and they kiss! The families then spend Christmas together, which seems a bit fast. They kiss some more and sing songs. Watch the show on Youtube - www.deckthehallmark.com/youtube Interested in advertising on the show? Email bran@deckthehallmark.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.