The Hallmark Channel’s Countdown to Christmas is an annual tradition that only seems to get bigger and more robust with every passing year. The holiday-themed slate of shows and movies typically begins in October — before Halloween is even over, the audacity! — and runs for more than two months, offering holiday-themed romantic comedies, frosty winter adventures, festive competition shows and murder mysteries. (Murders just go down easier when they’re Christmas-themed.) The Countdown to Christmas is already underway, but there are still dozens of great shows and movies to watch between now and Dec. 25.
The first season of Mistletoe Murders was released on the Hallmark Channel in October, and season 2 arrives just a few weeks later, showing you just how addictive this mystery series is. The show stars Sarah Drew as Emily, the proprietor of a Christmas-themed gift shop in the small town of Fletcher’s Grove (that’s an Easter egg for you Murder, She Wrote fans). Emily’s an excellent sleuth, a good thing as there’s a disproportionate number of murders in this town that need solving. Two new episodes of the show will drop weekly on Nov. 7, 14 and 21.
Christmas Above the Clouds is a riff on A Christmas Carol and, in case you’re someone who thinks Hallmark movies are bland or boring, let’s see how you feel when I tell you that the main character of this film is named Ella Neezer. ELLA NEEZER! Erin Krakow, who also stars in When Calls the Heart, plays the Scrooge-inspired character, a workaholic with no real sense of the Christmas spirit who attempts to skip the holiday by leaving town. Then she boards her flight to Australia and ends up being visited by three spirits, as well as by her ex-boyfriend (Tyler Hynes).
Tamera Mowry-Housley hosts Hallmark’s baking competition Baked With Love: Holiday, where she and judges Anna Haugh and Vaughn Vreeland set out to determine the best home bakers who compete in a series of holiday-themed challenges using their own family recipes. The show premiered on Oct. 27 and airs weekly on Mondays through Dec. 15.
A trio of Hallmark Channel’s popular leading men play the titular Three Wisest Men in this upcoming holiday comedy. Three Wisest Men is the third film in an annual holiday series (see also: Three Wise Men and a Baby and Three Wiser Men and a Boy) about the Brenner brothers. They’re three grown, just barely-adult men who live near their mom (Margaret Colin) and are navigating life changes, new relationships, and the fact that their mom is putting their childhood home up for sale, and this is the last Christmas they’ll be spending there.
A glassblower named Holly James (Laura Vandervoort) secretly displays her work at a holiday fair under a pseudonym and when her work takes off and her identity is revealed, the people she’s closest to, including the fair’s director, Jack (Stephen Huszar), feel betrayed. Has she … blown her chances at love with Jack? Will she be able to melt his heart by the end? Can she renew his faith in her? My glass terminology is limited but I’m guessing they make it work. The film premieres on Sunday, Nov. 23.
If you’re looking for a cozy way to cap off your Thanksgiving, the charming romance We Met in December premieres on Thursday, Nov. 27. In the film, Autumn Reeser and Niall Matter star as Annie Lane and Dave Weeks, two travelers who spend a magical, romantic evening together on an unexpected layover. When they eventually get on their flights home, they forget to exchange numbers and so each of them ventures out on a quest to find the other based on the limited information they have. All you had to do was NameDrop, guys!
Sisters Faith and Kelly decide to honor their grandmother’s dying wish by traveling to the French Alps for Christmas to re-create her first trip there with their grandfather. While the two women rekindle their sisterly bond, Kelly and their French mountaineer guide, Frederic, also spark a romance. Ashley Williams and Laci J. Mailey co-star.
A Grand Ole Opry Christmas (out Nov. 29) is the perfect movie for a country music fan. The movie is set at the famed Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and features cameos from loads of country stars including Bill Anderson, Brad Paisley, Dailey & Vincent, Drew Baldridge, Jamey Johnson, Maggie Baugh, Mickey Guyton, Pam Tillis, Rhett Akins, Riders in the Sky, Suzy Bogguss and Tigirlily Gold. Actors Nikki DeLoach and Kristoffer Polaha star in this, twangy, time-hopping romance.
Mae Whitman stars as Kate, a textile designer in England whose best friends sign her up for a holiday-themed dating service without her knowing. She reluctantly joins, but has no idea just how much her life is about to change as a result. This six-episode series premieres on Dec. 5 and airs two episodes weekly, with new episodes dropping on Dec. 12 and Dec. 19. Jane Seymour, Mary McDonnell and Nathaniel Parker co-star.
A Suite Holiday Romance involves a case of mistaken identity — or at least, a case of not being quite honest about one’s identity — as two strangers (Jessy Schram and Dominic Sherwood) meet at a New York hotel at Christmastime and fall for each other under false pretenses. Can their love be real if it was initially based on lies?
Source: CNET.
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