When the holidays come around, all you want to do is curl under the covers with a good movie as snowflakes float from the sky and the temperatures dip below freezing. Throughout this season, many of my friends guiltily binge watch sappy Hallmark-like romances: the ones where your typical boy-meets-girl plot is set in a wholesome small town, decked with Christmas decor, with everyone getting ready for the Christmas festivities.
Over the past few years, these iconic movies have gained a solid fan base who proudly call themselves Hallmarkies. Private Facebook groups have even been established for diehard fans to chat with each other and discuss their mutual love for Hallmark. For many of them, Hallmark Christmas movies can provide a reassuring sense of joy and hope during such a festive, but stressful time of year. Between the pressure of spending money on decorations and trying to get gifts for every single family member or friend, the holiday season can become overwhelming.
And that’s why we look to wholesome forms of entertainment like Christmas Hallmark movies to shake us out of the winter blues. Here’s a list of new Hallmark movies being released this holiday season!
- Christmas at Graceland: Home For The Holidays
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When well-travelled Harper returns to Memphis during the holidays, she becomes a nanny for the children of Owen, a wealthy widower. As she waits for a job offer abroad, they both begin to become closer and develop feelings for each other. When they have to collaborate together on a fundraiser and exhibit joint-event for the holidays, Harper must decide whether she’ll permanently make Memphis her home.
- A Christmas Miracle
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After managing to snag a temporary job at a lifestyle magazine, single mom Eva Sanderson, a self-proclaimed optimist, is attempting to find a compelling holiday story. Along the way, romance blooms between her and a friend who is helping her with bringing a Christmas miracle for a lonely street performer.
- The Mistletoe Secret
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A regular small-town girl from Midway, Utah finds herself embroiled in a love-triangle when she convinces a famous travel writer to come to town in a bid to reinvigorate tourism, who unexpectedly brings his ghostwriter along for the ride.
- Christmas In Rome
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Just before Christmas, tour guide Angela is fired from her job, and her path crosses with a high-level businessman, Oliver, who’s visiting Rome to buy an Italian ceramics company. When the owner of the ceramics company refuses to sell it to Oliver until he learns “the heart and soul of Rome,” he recruits Angela as his tour guide around the historic and beautiful city.
- Christmas Town
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Lauren Gabriel moves away from Boston to turn over a new leaf in her life and career, and she unexpectedly lands in Grandon Falls, where through the Christmas spirit, she discovers the importance of love and family.
- Hallmark Hall of Fame: A Christmas Love Story
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A youth choir director is distracted from producing a song for her Christmas Eve show when, to the surprise of a widower, his young son joins her choir and stuns everyone with his angelic voice.
- Sense, Sensibility and Snowmen
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In this modern holiday re-adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, sisters Ella and Marianne, two party-planners, conflict with a client who is a disgruntled CEO of a toy company, Edward.
- Christmas Under The Stars
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During the holidays, Nick accepts a job at a Christmas tree farm after he’s fired from a powerful banking firm where he meets the astronomer teacher Julie. As he begins falling in love with Julie, he slowly overcomes his self-centeredness and discovers the merits of helping others.
- Two Turtle Doves
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Dr. Sharon Hayes unexpectedly encounters a little girl and her disillusioned widower father when searching for a family heirloom in a small-town during Christmastime. As Sharon becomes closer to the pair, she begins realizing what a true Christmas miracle is.
The holiday season means many things for each of us — rekindling familial ties, friendships and even romance. Where acts of kindness, love and charity bring to light the humanity that each and every one of us share in common. Although Christmas has become increasingly commercialized, which I’ll talk about in depth in my next article, Hallmark movies are marked by their special ability to capitalize both on the holiday season and maintain the heart of what it means to celebrate it.