During the months of November and December, you can expect that the Hallmark Channel will be on 24/7 in my room–it’s channel 3 on BUTV in case you were wondering. Every single Hallmark Channel Christmas movie is jam-packed with holiday spirit–from eggnog sipping, to tree decorating, to romantic dates at an ice rink. Most of these movies are also filled with familiar faces, like Candace Cameron-Bure, a.k.a D.J. Tanner from Full House (which, by the way, is coming to the Hallmark Channel on New Year’s Day). But for now, check out some of my favorite Hallmark holiday movies, all starring a familiar celebrity lead.
1. Let It Snow
from Hallmark Channel
Candace Cameron-Bure stars as Stephanie Beck, an ambitious executive of Falcon Resorts, spending the holidays at the family-owned and operated Snow Valley Lodge as Falcon Resorts prepares to buy out and renovate the property. The Snow Valley Lodge is known for its Christmas traditions and festivities. And, despite her initial ambivalence toward the holiday season, as she starts to spend time with Brady, the son of the owners of Snow Valley Lodge, she falls in love with both the Christmas spirit at the lodge and with the guy who opened her eyes to it all.
2. Finding Santa
from Hallmark Channel
Starring another former Tanner sister of Full House, Jodie Sweetin (Stephanie Tanner), plays Grace, owner of her town’s beloved Christmas store and organizer of the annual Christmas parade. After the parade’s traditional Santa, Tom, gets hurt and is unable to be in the year’s televised parade, Grace is determined to get Tom’s son, Ben, to fill his father’s shoes for the parade. Throughout the film, Grace and Ben grow closer, and Grace helps him rediscover his Christmas spirit as he helps her to rediscover her passion.
3. A Christmas Melody
from Hallmark Channel
Remember Mean Girls’ Gretchen Weiners, member of the Plastics, lover of all things fetch? Her dad was the inventor of toaster strudel? Well, she was played by actress Lacey Chabert, who has left her days of the Plastics behind and now stars in a number of Hallmark Channel holiday movies, including A Christmas Melody. In this flick, Chabert plays Kristin, a fashion designer who has to close shop at her Manhattan boutique and move with her daughter, Emily, back to the small town she grew up in Ohio. Kristin and Emily adjust to their new lives together as the school music teacher and one of Kristen’s former classmates, Danny, helps Emily find her voice in a school Christmas show while finding romance with Kristin, and helping to make Ohio their new home. Bonus: Mariah Carey, singer of the Christmas anthem, “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” also stars as Kristin’s old high school rival.
4. Family for Christmas
from People.com
If you can’t get enough of Lacey Chabert’s Hallmark holiday classics, here’s another one of my favorites. In Family for Christmas, Hannah Dunbar is thriving as an investigative journalist but finds herself asking what her life would be like if she had chosen the guy she loved, Ben, over her career. After the Santa Claus at her office Christmas party hears her wish, she finds herself living the life that would have been, where she and Ben had a family, and discovers what life with him and two daughters is like, and whether or not it was what she always wanted.
I hope you get a chance to watch all these Hallmark holiday movies and more this season, and that these heartwarming stories, familiar faces, and that classic Hallmark cheer can get you in the holiday spirit.
Cover photo from The Hallmark Channel
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