It’s probably the most great time of the 12 months…for Hallmark Channel executives! The annual Countdown to Christmas programming occasion has change into a vacation vacation spot for TV viewers, making Hallmark the most-watched leisure cable community for 5 years in a row.
“We have a 24/7 news cycle — it’s a constant need to be fed — and we have a lot of dark, edgy programming out in the world that’s fantastic, but as in the human experience, it’s a huge spectrum, and where we live is with positivity and celebration and emotional connection, and that’s unique to what we do,” Michelle Vicary, then Crown Media’s EVP of programming and community publicity, defined to Variety in 2019. “If you choose to spend two hours of your time with us, you’re going to feel a little bit better about the world and yourself and your community.”
That stated, followers can’t take Hallmark’s Christmas flicks too severely, proper? For some time, it appeared like each featured a white, heterosexual couple, with the lady sporting purple and the person sporting inexperienced. And it wasn’t simply the advertising that appeared cookie-cutter: The storylines have felt a little bit acquainted…like an previous Christmas sweater, maybe! (“What has 15 actors, 4 settings, 2 writers, and 1 plot line? 632 Hallmark Christmas movies,” one Twitter consumer quipped a couple of years in the past.)
So we’re honoring Hallmark’s vacation programming and likewise roasting it like a chestnut on an open fireplace with this chronological listing of the most Hallmark titles in Countdown to Christmas historical past. If our eyes occurred to land on these titles within the pages of TV Guide Magazine, we’d know immediately we have been a Hallmark Channel itemizing.
Jennifer Beals stars on this film, taking part in one half of a workaholic couple who swing into motion to avoid wasting Christmas after Santa Claus crashes into their home. We’re nonetheless holding out for a sequel titled The Night Before the Night Before the Night Before Christmas.
The first Countdown to Christmas providing with a punny title — and positively not the final — this movie options vacation favourite Daniel Stern (of Home Alone fame), who defends his home’s luminous repute from the competitors throughout the road.
Featuring a pre-Outlander Sam Heughan and a pre-Supergirl Katie McGrath, this film boasts the primary of many “royal falls for commoner” Countdown to Christmas storylines. McGrath performs an vintage retailer worker who will get swept off her toes and swept into the monarchy of Castlebury. (Of course the dominion is named Castlebury!)
Remember what we stated concerning the puns? In this story impressed by A Christmas Carol, Carrie Fisher performs a Marley-type ghost who reveals the ruthless guide writer Carol, performed by Emmanuel Vaugier, what the vacation is all about. (Unfortunately, the 2018 Hallmark Channel film It’s Christmas, Eve is unrelated.)
The “mix-up” in query? Whether store proprietor Alice (Alicia Witt) — Hallmark loves these store house owners! — will keep true to her fiancé, Will (Scott Gibson), or comply with her attraction to his brother, Matt (Mark Wiebe). “Sometimes fate has a funny way of mixing things up” is the knowledge disbursed within the promo above.
And talking of store house owners discovering love in sudden locations, this Hallmark Channel film has bridal boutique entrepreneur Madeline (Rachel Skarsten) smitten along with her consumer’s movie star brother, Jonny (Trevor Donovan). Will her emotions go unrequited? Or, as Hallmark wonders, will the motion star “be brave enough to take on the role of a lifetime”?
We can’t utter the title of this film with out laughing. How did they handle on set?! In any case, the romance follows a vacation decorator (Jill Wagner) working additional time to deck the halls of a mansion and de-curmudgeon her good-looking consumer (Matthew Davis).
“Love is just a fashion faux pas away” trumpets the promo for this Ashley Williams–Niall Matter romp. It’s all a little bit meta contemplating Hallmark Channel is the TV equal of a Christmas sweater.
Starring Marisol Nichols and Kristoffer Polaha, this film tracks a pair whose relationship has gone from “holly jolly” to “ho-humbug.” Can they get their spark again in Gracious, Vermont? Meanwhile, we’re questioning why it took many years for Hallmark to dream up a “Married Christmas” title.
When they’re not penning puns, Hallmark Channel is all concerning the alliteration. Case in level: A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe, with Rachel Boston as a cookie-company CEO mogul on the path of a stolen household recipe and Victor Webster as a dashing baker caught up in her investigation.