Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square, starring Dolly Parton, Christine Baranski, Jenifer Lewis, and Treat Williams
A full-on Dolly Parton–penned musical adapted from a real-life stage show that involves Dolly floating on a cloud and the horror of gentrification.
The Christmas Chronicles 2, starring Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn, Darby Camp, and Tyrese Gibson
Goldie Hawn IS Mrs. Claus. That’s all you need to know.
Operation Christmas Drop, starring Kat Graham and Alexander Ludwig
One of the first movies filmed in Guam to receive wide distribution, a congressional aide and army captain clash over a plan to airlift a gift to the citizens of Guam for Christmas.
Our verdict: Slightly bigger names may give off the aura of something more prestigious than Hallmark, Lifetime, and UPtv, but really, Netflix’s movies are just covered in nicer wrapping paper.
Hallmark
We move now to the network that started it all. When it comes to made-for-TV Christmas movies, Hallmark shall be called their wonderful counselor; their mighty, everlasting father; their king of kings. Hallmark built the template for the contemporary Christmas movie, which tends to revolve around single 30- to 40-something professionals who live somewhere in America’s northern middle. (These towns aren’t quite the Midwest, and not quite the Northeast; there’s just snow-covered hamlets with robust economies, where newspapers thrive and all businesses are family owned.) They’re religious in that these characters would never say “Happy Holidays,” and tend to discuss the “magic” and/or “spirit” of Christmas as more of an aphrodisiac than a force inspiring generosity.
With the exception of The Christmas House, Hallmark’s highly publicized first attempt at an LGBTQ romance (in this instance, between two white gay men), these movies are about straight couples played by a troupe of mostly white actors who are either veteran TV stars or merely look like they could have been. And if Hallmark is king, Candace Cameron Bure, the former child star who rode the network to even greater heights of stardom as an adult, is its self-described queen. In If I Only Had Christmas, we open on Cameron Bure waking up in a candy cane-covered onesie and immediately telling her dog how excited she is to attend her office’s Christmas party. What follows is a Wizard of Oz–inspired journey that leads her into the arms of Kansas City’s biggest grinch.
Hallmark’s notable 2020 premieres include:
A Christmas Tree Grows in Colorado, starring Rochelle Aytes and Mark Taylor
Practically every movie on the Hallmark rundown involves some sort of adversarial relationship that will eventually melt into romance—like this one, where he’s a firefighter and she’s just trying to, you know, borrow a tree from his property to drum up some tourism for her small Colorado town.
If I Only Had Christmas, starring Candace Cameron Bure and Warren Christie
It’s not Christmas if Candace Cameron Bure isn’t involved—and this year, in her ninth Hallmark Christmas movie, she’s…a “bright and cheery publicist” who has to manage a “Scrooge-like” businessman and his team to save Christmas. If you’re wondering what the title means, it’s paying homage to The Wizard of Oz. As Cameron Bure herself tweeted in August: “If I only had… a brain, a heart, a home, the nerve, … but rather, Christmas.”
Love, Lights, and Hanukkah!, starring Mia Kirshner, Ben Savage, and Marilu Henner
Finally, the long-awaited Jewish Christmas movie is here. We’ve got Mia Kirshner from The L Word, Ben Savage from Boy Meets World, and…Marilu Henner! You’d think a movie with Hanukkah in the title would be more focused on the holiday, but this is the log line: after a DNA test informs Christina (Kirshner) that she’s actually Jewish, her whole world is “shook.” Even funnier, Hallmark had to shift the movie’s air date back to December 12, so it could premiere before Hanukkah ended. Oops!