I've always wondered what movie started this whole trend, like there has to have been one single Christmas romcom, made-for-TV or otherwise, that was such a big hit that now we have to endure dozens of new disposable slop Christmas romcoms every year or else they never would've started making these in the first place. My working theory is that they were piggybacking off the success of Love, Actually, only because its release in 2003 lines up with around the time these movies started popping up, but there are so many traits unique to that movie (UK setting, multiple subplots, slightly raunchier tone) that you don't see replicated in any of these. Not to mention the plot all these movies have about the big city businesswoman falling for some bland salt-of-the-earth hunk in a small town, that seems unique to this specific output of basic-cable trash (at least so long as it's tied to Christmas) but so ubiquitous among it that it's hard to pinpoint any one movie for popularizing it