Ready or not, it’s made-for-TV Christmas movie season
November 4, 2017 - 5:29 pm
Finish setting your clocks, grab a bag of leftover Halloween candy and curl up in front of the television. It’s made-for-TV Christmas movie season, where, more often than not, the combination of small towns and handsome men with random occupations leads to romance.
■ A young doctor (Candace Cameron Bure) accepts a job in a tiny Alaskan town, where she falls for a hunky local, in “Christmas Under Wraps.”
■ An entertainment reporter (AnnaLynne McCord) stuck in a small town helps a handsome artist build a parade float to save the community art center in “The Christmas Parade.”
■ Twenty years after she asked Santa for a boyfriend, a child advocate (Kelli Williams, “Army Wives”) finds one on her doorstep in “A Boyfriend for Christmas.”
■ A single mom (Brooke Burns) dislikes Christmas, but the stranger whom her uncle (Henry Winkler) brings home for the holidays may help change that in “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
■ A woman (Alicia Witt, “Nashville”) going to meet her fiance’s parents ends up at the wrong house on Christmas in “A Very Merry Mix-Up.”
■ When a bachelor fireman (Brandon Routh) takes in a stray cat, he meets a gorgeous veterinary student in “The Nine Lives of Christmas.”
■ A hopeless romantic (Meredith Hagner, “Royal Pains”) begins receiving each gift of the “12 Days of Christmas” anonymously in “My Christmas Love.”
■ When a New York businesswoman (Nikki Deloach, “Awkward”) inherits her grandmother’s Christmas tree farm, she becomes attracted to the small-town attorney handling the estate in “Christmas Land.”
■ A law student (Taylor Cole, “The Originals”) sets out to save her town’s Christmas festival with the help of a hunky artist in “Christmas Festival of Ice.”
■ The organizer of her hometown Chr “Sleigh Bells Ring.”
■ A bridal boutique owner (Rachel Skarsten, “Reign”) realizes the bride’s brother is her celebrity crush in “Marry Me at Christmas.”
■ A Chicago “tree finder” (Brooke D’Orsay, “Royal Pains”) travels to a small town where sparks fly with the perfect tree’s rugged owner in “Miss Christmas.”
■ And when a world-famous actress (Taylor Cole again) films a Christmas movie in a small town, she falls for a local single dad in “Christmas in Homestead.”
All those movies are scheduled to air Sunday.
And that’s just on one channel.
What’s that you say? It’s not even Thanksgiving? Hallmark Channel, home to all of these Christmas delights, has been running holiday movies nonstop since Oct. 28.
If none of those sounds like the cure for your Daylight Savings Time hangover, try Sunday’s lineup on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, which also went full Christmas on Oct. 28.
■ An overbearing Broadway director (Melissa Gilbert) takes a job in a small town, where she reconnects with her former fiance, in “The Christmas Pageant.”
■ A single mom (Tricia Helfer) in North Carolina falls for the New York adman renting her brother’s house in “Finding Christmas.”
■ A recent widow (Kellie Martin) finds love with the owner of a Christmas tree lot in “The Christmas Ornament.”
■ To get home in time for Christmas, a woman (Meghan Ory, “Once Upon a Time”) on the no-fly list shares a rental car with the FBI agent trailing her in “Debbie Macomber’s Dashing Through the Snow.”
■ The Duke of Castlebury Hall (the late Roger Moore) tries to reconnect with his estranged grandchildren in “A Princess for Christmas.”
■ When a professional gift finder (Sam Page, “Mad Men”) is asked to find the right present for his college buddy’s girlfriend, she falls in love with him instead in “The Perfect Christmas Present.”
■ A widowed mother (Bridget Regan, “The Last Ship”) buys a Christmas stocking at the local craft fair, only to have it start filling up with gifts, in “Magic Stocking.”
■ A high school music teacher (Lindy Booth, “The Librarians”) is hired to give lessons to a handsome widower’s daughters in “Sound of Christmas.”
■ A professional organizer (Catherine Bell) is hired by a toy inventor with two small children to get his life in order before a big presentation in “Christmas in the Air.”
■ And, three days before Christmas, a woman (Erin Krakow, “When Calls the Heart”) heads to a small New England town searching for the father she never knew in “Finding Father Christmas.”
You may not have your Christmas shopping done. You probably haven’t even started. But at least you can get your Christmas movie watching finished early.
If you happen to be busy on Sunday, don’t fret. These movies will be playing, essentially on a loop, for nearly two months.
That way you can spend Christmas watching spring break movies.
What to watch
■ The eighth season of “Shameless” (9 p.m. Sunday, Showtime) finds things looking up for the Gallaghers as Frank (William H. Macy) finally decides to contribute to society.
■ The documentary “Obey Giant” (Saturday, Hulu), executive produced by James Franco, looks at the world of street art and the rise of artist Shepard Fairey.
■ “Rolling Stone: Stories From the Edge” (9 p.m. Monday and Tuesday) looks at the past 50 years of American music, politics and pop culture through the pages of the iconic magazine.
■ For its second season, “The Girlfriend Experience” (9 p.m. Sunday, Starz) follows two exclusive escorts (Anna Friel, Carmen Ejogo) and their clients in vastly different environments: the corruption of Washington, D.C., and the deserts of New Mexico.
Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4567. Follow @life_onthecouch on Twitter.
What to watch
■ The eighth season of “Shameless” (9 p.m. Sunday, Showtime) finds things looking up for the Gallaghers as Frank (William H. Macy) finally decides to contribute to society.
■ The documentary “Obey Giant” (Saturday, Hulu), executive produced by James Franco, looks at the world of street art and the rise of artist Shepard Fairey.
■ “Rolling Stone: Stories From the Edge” (9 p.m. Monday and Tuesday) looks at the past 50 years of American music, politics and pop culture through the pages of the iconic magazine.
■ For its second season, “The Girlfriend Experience” (9 p.m. Sunday, Starz) follows two exclusive escorts (Anna Friel, Carmen Ejogo) and their clients in vastly different environments: the corruption of Washington, D.C., and the deserts of New Mexico.