From the Grinch to Buddy the Elf, on the scale of holiday cheer, I've been leaning toward the Green Man for most of my adult life. Family stress aside, being single during "the most wonderful time of the year" sucks. For this reason, I have avoided the (opens in new tab) TV (opens in new tab) Christmas (opens in new tab) movie (opens in new tab) genre like the plague. Drew played a pretty convincing runaway bride in "Grey's Anatomy," and in that mold, I could see a cheesy couple stealing mistletoe kisses by the fire.

Since then, I've become a TV Christmas movie addict (open in new tab). I love to actually live vicariously through the vague career woman-turned-lover, whatever taste Drew, Hilary Burton, and Bethany Joy Lenz play for 90 minutes. Their happy endings, unlike mine, are set in stone.

As a wheelchair user who has given up on dating apps, I'm beginning to doubt that I'll ever get the kind of guaranteed long-lasting encounters that the leading ladies in TV dramas are given.

But on December 6, thanks to Lifetime, I will finally get to see someone who looks like me have a happy ending. In "Christmas Ever After," Ali Stroker makes television history as the first wheelchair user to appear in a holiday movie. In this glamorous romance film, she plays Izzy, a writer whose fictional characters and the "perfect love" they hold prevent her from seeing what is right in front of her: Matt (Daniel Di Tomasso). He is gorgeous and looks exactly like the man on the cover of Izzy's romance novel.

"A Christmas Ever After" does more than help us believe that wheelchair users fall in love. The film honestly and skillfully overcomes that obstacle.

I don't have much dating experience, but once, before a first date, a man I was messaging on a dating app conveniently misunderstood a joke I made about cheap wine and decided against going out. He explained his reason as an afterthought: "You're needy."

This is one of the worst things you can say to someone with a disability. We spend so much time trying to achieve conventional "independence" and "success." So even if the word "needy" referred to something other than my disability, it triggered me. If I had to expend emotional energy to pretend to be (potentially) less needy than the average woman on a dating app, it wasn't worth my time. It's a reality that Stroker can relate to.

"I know that one of the things I felt insecure about as a young girl and woman was love stories," Stroker says. 'How could I fit into a story about love and romance?'

But "Christmas Ever After" finally gave young people with disabilities a chance to see how they fit in. The fact that able-bodied viewers can also see it is a necessary bonus.

For example, there is a scene in "Christmas Ever After" where Stroker and Di Tomasso literally depict what physical intimacy can be like for a couple when one partner is disabled and one is not. "One of the concerns for disabled people is, 'What are the logistics going to be?'" Stroker says. 'If someone is taller than you, they lean toward you.'

Sounds simple enough. But there are still not enough stories about people with disabilities on television for mainstream society to accept this as fact: GLAAD's 2019-2020 Where We Are On TV report, which tracks minority representation on television, found that last season primetime network television shows had only 27 characters with disabilities. And while the exact number of disabled actors playing disabled characters is not documented, hiring disabled actors to play disabled characters is currently the exception rather than the rule in Hollywood.

When Lifetime hired Stroker, it took the first step toward authentic representation. She explains that she loved "A Christmas Ever After" because it was just a romance film, but she also worked with director Pat Keeley and executive producer Juliana Hayes to add details to the script that would give a true sense of a wheelchair user's life We talked about adding details to the script that would feel true to the life of a wheelchair user. In a collaborative setting, I don't think it's productive to just say, "I know this isn't going to work." I think it's important to say, 'This doesn't feel authentic, and this is the way to fix that problem,'" Stroker says. 'I think it makes the story and the film as a whole better.'

It was Stroker's idea to replace the ice skating date with bowling, a request that anyone who uses mobility equipment can relate to. As you know, snow and ice aren't great for women with disabilities. I was able to draw on my life experience to suggest something that would work." Bowling may not be as glamorous as ice skating, but Stroker and Di Tomasso succeeded in making the scene of teaching someone how to hold a bowling ball romantic.

If I ever get on the app again, I'll keep that date idea in the back of my mind. Stroker made me think about it, especially as she talked about what playing Izzy had taught her. She explained, "When you have an idea of how things should be and you don't have the flexibility to be flexible, a lot of times life gets confusing." [Until that day comes, I'll be busy binge-watching Lifetime's holiday lineup. I need inspiration to keep swiping.