Holiday 2020
2020 Holiday Rom-Coms Are More Diverse Than Ever
While cable TV juggernaut the Hallmark Channel has long been the undisputed leader in the holiday rom-com field, their films haven’t exactly been known for their diversity. Most followed a similar pattern, featuring a white, heterosexual couple in a snowy locale finding love. But as competition started coming from Netflix and others in recent years, Hallmark has had to up its game. This year brings a more diverse slate of Christmas and holiday romance films than ever before. Here are a few to consider:
Happiest Season: Kristen Stewart (Twilight) and Mackenzie Caldwell (The F Word) star in this rom-com about Abby and Harper, a lesbian couple who go to Harper’s parents’ home for the holidays. However, Harper isn’t out to her conservative family yet, so she asks Abby to stay in the friend zone during their visit. That goes about as well as you’d expect. While the movie is charming, Marinette student Serenity Block notes, “Almost every movie with a gay plot is about coming out or being gay before electricity was harnessed. I would love to see a movie where coming out is not the focal point of the story.” Available now on Hulu.
Operation Christmas Drop: Loosely based on a true story, Operation Christmas Drop features Vampire Diaries actor Kat Graham as Erica, a congressional aide sent to assess whether a US Air Force base in Guam needs to close for budgetary reasons. There, she meets Andrew, an Air Force captain who shows her the true meaning of Christmas through the base’s tradition of airlifting holiday presents to the island country. Now available on Netflix.
The Christmas House: Hell might be freezing over and pigs might have started flying on Dec. 11, when the Hallmark Channel debuted its very first LGBTQ Christmas rom-com, The Christmas House. Brandon and Jake are already a couple when the film starts, but they’ve been trying, unsuccessfully so far, to adopt a child. Will they get the Christmas present they’ve been waiting for this year? Starring One Tree Hill‘s Robert Buckley and Jonathan Bennett, whom you might know as Lindsay Lohan’s love interest in Mean Girls. Now showing on HallmarkChannel.com and on TV Dec. 17, 25, and 31.
The Christmas Set-Up: Not wanting to be left behind, the Lifetime Channel also released its first LGBTQ Christmas rom-com, The Christmas Set-Up, on Dec. 12. New York City lawyer Hugo heads to Milwaukee to spend the holidays with his brother and his mom Kate. Little does he know that Kate is getting her matchmaker on, arranging for him to run into his old friend Patrick, who was his high-school friend—and secret crush. Sparks fly, but then Hugo gets a big promotion that would require him to move to London. Will he take the higher-paying job in the cool international locale, or take a chance on a budding romance? Now showing on MyLifetime.com.
A Sugar & Spice Holiday: Lifetime boasts that this holiday rom-com is the first ever to feature an all-Asian cast. When Suzie, a rising young architect, comes home to small-town Maine for Christmas, she runs into Billy, the grown-up version of the boy who stood her up for the Christmas dance in high school. When her Chinese American parents persuade her to enter the local gingerbread competition in honor of her late grandmother, Suzie ends up on a team with—you guessed it!—Billy. Will Suzie respond to Billy’s flirtation with sugar and spice, or a spatula to the side of the head? Now showing on MyLifetime.com.
Let’s Meet Again on Christmas Eve: College sweethearts Corinne and Rob get job offers upon graduation on opposite sides of the world. Instead of giving the long-distance thing a try, they decide to part ways, with a catch: They’ll meet two years later on Christmas Eve to see if they still feel that spark. Two years later, one shows up and the other does not. Quite a bit of time passes before they finally meet again, when they’re both hired to organize the same Christmas Eve wedding. But their romance is totally over, right? Now available on MyLifetime.com.
Love, Lights, Hanukkah!: As Christina prepares her restaurant for the holiday season, she takes a DNA test on a whim and finds out she’s Jewish. The discovery leads her to new family members and a possible romance with a cute Jewish guy named David. Now available on HallmarkChannel.com. Showing on TV Dec. 16, 19, 25, 31.