Christmas’ Most Ambitious Crossover Event: The Netflix Christmas Cinematic Universe
Is Netflix preparing for the holiday seasons most ambitious crossover event? Candace and Arezou seem to think so. Join them as they walk through the the Netflix Christmas Cinematic Universe, connect the dots between movies and try not to sound too much like that Charlie Day gif (the key word being "try")
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By Arezou
The most wonderful time of the year is upon us once again. That time of the year to plunk down in front of the TV, cocoa in hand to watch story after story of the big city person who returns to their hometown for the holidays only to find love with their still-charming, heart-of-gold childhood sweetheart. Or the too-busy executive who finds themselves in a small town this holiday season and finds love with a charming local with a very niche profession. Or, my favourite kind, and I mean this unironically: the story of a commoner and a member of some made-up European royal family who find some common ground and learn what it means to live and love, all set against a backdrop of over-the-top Christmas decor.
It is in this last “genre” in particular that Netflix is absolutely thriving. Since 2017 they have kept up a steady stream of holiday-themed royalty rom-coms that I look forward to watching and rewatching every year. But Netflix is not content to just churn out Christmas movies at a regular pace. Oh no. Nestled comfortably between the heyday of the first three phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the Star Wars Universe of stories on the horizon, a new, unexpected, interconnected world was born: the Netflix Christmas Cinematic Universe.
Of course, not all the Netflix Original Christmas movies fall within this cinematic universe. As it is, the few that do are so interconnected I had to make a flowchart, so I think it’s best if we take this one by one.
A Christmas Prince (2017) is the keystone to all of this. The Iron Man, if you will. A Christmas Prince is the story of a journalist named Amber who travels to the fictional kingdom of Aldovia on behalf of her sketchy gossip magazine to cover the coronation of runaway playboy Prince Richard, who must assume the throne before the anniversary of his father’s death, on Christmas Eve. I’m unclear on whether his father actually died on Christmas Eve or whether he died around Christmas and December 24 is just when they’re having the coronation because Aldovia really loves Christmas. But none of that matters. What DOES matter is that Amber sneaks into the palace pretending to be the tutor for Richard’s younger sister, and in the process both uncovers a life-changing royal secret and wins the heart of Prince Richard. Pretty standard stuff, right?
The next year, 2018, brought us two entries into this Christmas movie canon: A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding, which as the title suggests, is about Amber and Richard’s wedding, being planned and thrown amidst an Aldovian financial crisis that is causing the bulk of the country to suffer. The second movie, and my personal favourite of them all, is The Princess Switch. This one is a bit of a spin on “The Prince and the Pauper”, with the dual role being played by Vanessa Hudgens. She plays both Margaret, the Duchess of Montenaro (not a real place), and Stacey, an American baker who has travelled to the kingdom of Belgravia (also not a real place) for the annual Christmas baking competition hosted by the royal family. While at the competition venue, Margaret and Stacey accidentally bump into each other. Some quick family history review reveals that the two are distant cousins, and Margaret asks Stacey to switch places with her for a couple of days, as she wants the chance to experience life as a normal girl before proceeding with her engagement to the handsome-if-boring Prince Edward. Stacey agrees, on the condition Margaret help the daughter of Stacey’s handsome friend Kevin get a place in the Belgravian summer ballet program, and the two switch places. Naturally, Margaret falls in love with spontaneous, easy-going Kevin, while Stacey falls for awkward, well-meaning sweetheart Edward and it’s happily-ever-after all around!
So far, we have no crossover between the worlds of our two stories. Amber and Richard stay firmly in their story world, and the characters of The Princess Switch stay in theirs. With one small exception. During a cozy night in, Margaret and Kevin sit down in front of the TV to watch Stacey’s “favourite movie”, which just happens to be…A Christmas Prince. OK, sure. Why not. Netflix is getting a little meta about Netflix.
But this is where things get interesting.
In 2019, we got two new additions once again. We got the third instalment in Amber and Richard’s story, A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby, where the royal couple is - as the title suggests - awaiting the arrival of their first child. The second new addition to our lineup is The Knight Before Christmas, a fish-out-of-water (out of time, really) love story starring Vanessa Hudgens (again!) as a science teacher named Brooke who falls in love with a literal knight in shining armour send to present-day Small Town, USA by a witch. Despite their wildly different premises, they both introduce two extremely important elements. The first is the introduction of magic: the witch in Knight and the idea of ancient curses in Royal Baby. The story goes that in 1419, the kingdoms of Aldovia and Penglia (say it with me now: not a real place, but in Asia this time) were at war until they decided to declare a truce on Christmas Eve with the signing of an accord. Failure to resign this accord on Christmas Eve at predetermined intervals will result in a curse befalling the firstborn of whichever monarch has the treaty at the time of signing. And while I’m here, can I just point out that the Christmas Accord of 1419 is clearly meant to mirror the famous Christmas Truce of 1914. They even flipped the year around!
Anyway.
The second element, that of a shared world, is the more important one, because 2019 was the year Netflix threw away the meta Easter eggs. The second element is the idea that these movies exist in a shared universe at all. Let’s break it down.
The simplest of all the connections is made in A Knight Before Christmas, where Brooke’s sister, while decorating her Christmas tree, holds up a large ornament shaped like an acorn, and tells her daughter that her parents brought it back from a trip to Aldovia. Viewers of the Netflix Christmas Cinematic Universe will recognize this ornament as being very similar to the one that featured so heavily in the first Christmas Prince film.
So, first connection made. These two movies take place in the same universe, but worlds apart. It feels more like a courtesy acknowledgment than an attempt to genuinely connect the two stories. Where things get a little more complicated is in Royal Baby. While in discussions with the King and Queen of Penglia regarding the history of the truce between their two nations, Amber and Richard consult a map of Europe. Sure enough, tucked in near Aldovia are the kingdoms of Belgravia and Montenaro. With this quick little shot, the three stories are unified under the same “shared universe umbrella”
If the connection with the map seems tenuous at best, then buckle up, because 2020’s Princess Switch 2: Switched Again brought the last bit of indisputable proof that the Princess Switch movies are set in the same world as the others, and it does so with one quick cameo at the end of the film. As Margaret enters the cathedral to be crowned Queen of Montenaro, the camera pans along the audience. Sure enough, among the other visiting dignitaries, we spot Queen Amber and King Richard (along with their adorable daughter).
Shared Universe confirmed. This single shot made me go full Charlie-Day-meme. The implications! This means there’s an entire FOURTH Vanessa Hudgens running around in this world. She’s got to be related to them too right?
But wait, if you remember, I mentioned earlier that the Netflix movie A Christmas Prince exists in the world of Princess Switch as a movie. How then do Amber and Richard also exist for real in this universe?
Well, if we assume each movie is set in the same year it was released, then Margaret and Kevin are watching the movie a full year after the events are supposed to have taken place. This would, by the same logic, also be the same year Richard and Amber are actually getting married (I guess Margaret and Edward weren’t invited). Real life royal wedding viewers like myself will remember that Lifetime released made for TV movies about the courtship of Will and Kate, as well as that of Harry and Meghan. We can therefore assume that in this universe, Netflix has assumed the role of Lifetime, and produced a made-for-streaming version of Richard and Amber’s love story to mark the occasion of their real life wedding.
So, where does this leave us going forward. I can only assume that next Christmas (or possibly the year after that, when it’s safer) we are going to see a big Avengers-style crossover between the different series. There is talk of a third Princess Switch movie. I propose for this next outing, rather than creating a new Vanessa Hudgens out of whole cloth, they use the Vanessa Hudgens they already have in their roster: Brooke, from A Knight Before Christmas. Perhaps a royal occasion takes Stacey, Edward, Margaret and Kevin to Aldovia. The investiture of Amber and Richard’s daughter as heir to the throne perhaps? We know from the first Christmas Prince that women cannot inherit the throne, but perhaps this will be the movie to change it? Our Princess Switch gang can team up with Amber and Richard, as well as Brooke and Cole who are also visiting (maybe Cole wants to visit his descendants who live in Aldovia now) and concoct some major switch-around plot to get the law changed? Unless they changed the law already, and I just don’t remember. There’s a lot going on in these movies.
With that food for thought, I wish you all the cheesiest, most sentimental, twinkle-light and hot-cocoa saturated holiday season you could ever want.
