Allow me to introduce myself: I am the man in the Hallmark movies. I make furniture. I have a dog. I’m inexplicably single with no kids in a town where everyone gets married in middle school. Dean Cain has played me on TV 14 times.
You may recognize me from Christmas classics like, “He’ll be Coming Home for Christmas,” or “She’ll be Coming Home for Christmas,” or 2022’s regrettable, “It/They Will Be Coming Home for Christmas.” I’m the only person you’ll see on the Hallmark Channel more than the Golden Girls.
My name is usually Jake, though sometimes it’s Mark or, if the network is feeling particularly multicultural, Josh. But really, my name is less relevant than the Cleveland Browns this time of year, because not one of those movies ever bothers telling my story, which Hook & Barrel Magazine has asked me to share.
I wasn’t always the man in the Hallmark movie. For years, I assumed Hallmark movies—like shower gel and asking for directions—were chicks’ stuff. As a man, a Christmas movie was only a Christmas movie if it had:
• A bad guy falling off a skyscraper,
• A different bad guy getting hit in the crotch with a rake,
• or Jimmy Stewart.
But then, one Christmas, all that changed. One minute I was minding my own business, playing fetch with my black Lab and building credenzas. Then out of nowhere, my fourth-grade crush was standing in my barn.
Why do I have a barn?
Because everyone in small towns where it snows on Christmas has a barn. It’s actually required by the building code, especially for single men who only shave every other Thursday.
Like most people, I hadn’t thought about my fourth-grade crush since I lost my affinity for girls who ate paste. But apparently, she was—you’ll never believe this—home for Christmas, and in urgent need of a desk for her very fancy office that overlooks the skyline of Vancouver, where she either runs an evil corporation or adopts kittens.
I showed her some samples, offered her some fresh-pressed apple cider, and we ended up standing under the mistletoe that hangs over my horse stalls. No, of course I don’t own horses. But horse stalls are the hometown equivalent of a private rooftop jacuzzi.
I blacked out, had a couple of weird dreams about prescription drugs and cat food, and woke up to her wearing my L.L. Bean sweatshirt and having a very loud conversation in Mandarin.
She nervously apologized, mumbled something about an investor call and stole my L.L. Bean sweatshirt. I spent an entire week trying to get that sweatshirt back, which I’m starting to think she took the wrong way. Because a week later, she told me she was leaving her stockbroker boyfriend, moving home and living in my barn.
Now, you’d think this would thrill most guys in a town where the dating pool is about as deep as a motel shower. But that would be forgetting that your average 30-something small-town bachelor with no kids is probably single for a reason. And not because I hadn’t found someone to badger me into selling credenzas on Etsy.
So, it goes about like you’d expect: Every spring the snow melts, she gets tired of living somewhere she can’t Door Dash matcha and goes back to the city. I build furniture and hunt with my black Lab. By summer, we’ve both forgotten it ever happened, and then by Christmas, the cycle repeats. If nothing else, it keeps Dean Cain employed.
This “Last Laugh” column originally appeared in Hook & Barrel’s November-December 2026 print edition. Check it out here!
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