Every year, we hold a school wide competition around the holidays:
Who doesn’t love a good Hallmark holiday movie? You are a screenwriter for the Hallmark Network. The holiday season is just around the corner. The company executives want you to pitch them your best Hallmark Holiday Movie idea.
This year, I decided to share my submission on the blog (and it won…no big deal).
Volunteer for Love
Travis and a group of his high school friends purchase Tennessee Volunteer season football tickets every year, and have for the past ten years. They’ve circled the mid-September matchup with Alabama as the game of the year. The Alabama Crimson Tide are a perennial championship contender, and the guys know this is a can’t miss game.
Kelly and her college roommate are not huge college football fans. However, they recognize the social event of the Knoxville season will be when the Crimson Tide stroll into town to take on their Volunteers. They’re lucky to get two tickets to the can’t miss affair.
While tailgating, Travis and his buddies partake in a little two hand touch football. An errant pass leads Travis literally into the seated arms of Kelly, who was sitting comfortably enjoying a pre-game cocktail. With instant chemistry, Kelly and Travis forgo going into the game of the year, debating shutter colors on their future forever home, outside the stadium in his truck bed.
Unbeknownst to the two, a monumental upset is brewing inside the stadium. A game winning field goal for the Vols as time expires knocks off the number one rated Crimson Tide. The storming of the field by the Volunteer faithful quickly spills out into the streets. Kelly and Travis are separated by the tsunami of fans leaving the stadium in jubilation.
Unable to find each other and so wrapped up in their conversation earlier that the two never exchanged phone numbers, Kelly and Travis head home devastated that their perfect day appears to be just that, one day.
The next several months playout as a series of almost run-ins between Kelly and Travis. Despite efforts to find each other, attempts to cheer-up the melancholy couple from friends and roommates, and declarations to move on from Kelly and Travis, the two can’t shake the feeling that their relationship is destined to be.
Tennessee finishes this year with a bid to the Mistletoe Bowl, a game played annually on Christmas Eve. As a season ticket holder, Travis is able to purchase tickets to the game. Kelly’s roommate, in an effort to cheer her up, enters the two in a karaoke contest, with the winners receiving two tickets to the Mistletoe Bowl. After a rousing rendition of “Baby it’s Cold Outside”, the two earn their way to the Christmas Eve matchup.
From the kickoff, the game is a back and forth battle between two teams unwilling to have a blue Christmas. Mix that with constant double takes and looking over their shoulders in search of lost love, Travis and Kelly are unable to enjoy the game of the ages unfolding on the field in front of them. As the clock winds down, will the Volunteers pull out a miracle victory? And more importantly, is there enough Christmas magic to align the paths of Travis and Kelly one more time?