Last Friday around 11:30 p.m., seven men and one woman sat together on a large sectional at Brandon Gray’s house in Greenville, S.C., while about 150 people watched them on YouTube.
The men were in casual dadwear. The woman wore a black pajama onesie. They snacked on veggies and hummus. It was the kind of parasocial scene you’d get if you asked A.I. to find a livestream that reminds you of being with family you actually like on Thanksgiving.
But hold up. Those pajamas were adorned with little white snowflakes. A decorated Christmas tree stood tall in the background. A video insert revealed that the eight were watching a movie called “Mystery on Mistletoe Lane.”
If it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas, that’s because the assembled party was five hours into a 29-hour marathon of Hallmark Channel Christmas movies for Gray and Daniel Thompson’s podcast, Deck the Hallmark, which is devoted to the genre.
Halloween was still two weeks away. But for Gray and his friends, the kickoff of Countdown to Christmas — the Hallmark Channel’s annual slate of holiday programming — means that Santa is as good as here.
“There’s something about Christmas that I want to bottle up and drink all year long,” said Gray, 34. “Hallmark makes that possible.”
For the channel’s die-hards, waiting until after Thanksgiving to watch Christmas movies isn’t too early. It’s way too late. For them, the first day of Countdown to Christmas, now in its 17th year, marks the unofficial start of the holidays — a corporate brand alignment similar to the annual return of the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, “the first sign that autumn has officially arrived,” as Starbucks says.
This season, the Hallmark Channel is releasing 34 new movies, plus a new season of the series “Mistletoe Murders.” That’s up from 24 new films last year, but it also represents a drop: Hallmark debuted at least 40 new original holiday movies annually from 2019 to 2024. (The movies and series are also available on the streaming service Hallmark+.)
The main event last weekend was the debut of “Holiday Touchdown,” about a journalist who falls for a Chicago firefighter who loves the Chicago Bears — the third N.F.L. team to be featured in a Hallmark Christmas movie in as many years, after the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills. Hallmark also debuted two other rom-coms: “’Tis the Season for Setups” (party planner falls for ski instructor) and “Mr. & Mrs. Christmas” (single dad plus practical accountant).
For Hallmark, Gray is gold: A Christmas true-believer who listens to carols at least once a week and keeps a countdown app on his phone that lets him know many days there are until the actual holiday.
Darren Abbott, the president of Hallmark Media and Hallmark’s chief brand officer, said any company would kill to have such an engaged audience base.
“They would love it if we did 50” new movies, he said in a video call this month.
The channel probably could. Abbott said Hallmark produces holiday movies as early as a year in advance and as short as in a few months. “Hearts All Aglow” is still in production in Canada — one of Hallmark’s go-to filming locations — but will air this year. Last weekend, “Holiday Touchdown” averaged 1.3 million viewers and “’Tis the Season for Setups,” 864,000, the channel said.
Hallmark is already looking ahead to 2027. Last week, Carlinville, Ill., was named the winner of Hallmark’s inaugural Merriest Christmas Towns Contest, voted on by fans. The grand prize? A Hallmark Christmas movie will film there next year.
Notice what was mostly missing from the Deck the Halls marathon: Women. Abbott wasn’t surprised. He noted that the viewership for the Hallmark Channel’s non-Christmas films skews female during the year. “But at Christmas time, it really goes across every demographic,” he said.
Joe Fulton, a 50-year-old art director, can dish about Hallmark Christmas movie stars the way an N.B.A. fan can dissect every LeBron James dribble.
On Lacey Chabert: “She’s the girl next door — always bubbly and happy and beautiful. If you see her in the cast, Hallmark probably put money behind it.”
On Kristoffer Polaha: “He’s rugged and a good hometown guy but he’s got to charm you and his leading lady into falling in love.”
Fulton put his discernment to good use on Saturday night. He had two friends over to his home in Washington, Pa.., outside Pittsburgh, where they ate homemade pulled-pork sandwiches, drank Christmas ale and watched Hallmark Christmas movies on a screen set up on the backyard deck. Fulton’s wife of almost 25 years was out of town, not that she’d watch anyway.
“These movies are love stories, not what guys would normally want to watch,” said Fulton, who covers Christmas movies and television year-round on his YouTube channel Christmas Aficionado. “I don’t watch for the love story, but more for the Christmas feels.”
Sleep was at stake last weekend, but so was money. Gray and Thompson make their livings off Deck the Hallmark. The marathon had a sponsor, Racine Danish Kringles, maker of a sweet oval pastry. Marathon watchers helped raise more than $41,000 for a foster-care charity, topping the $35,000 goal.
Countdown to Christmas is a boon for Hallmark Media (formerly known as Crown Media Family Networks), which operates the cable networks Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Mystery and Hallmark Family along with the streaming platform.
While men tune in more at Christmas time, women drive the channel’s viewership all year long. According to a spokeswoman, Countdown to Christmas has made the Hallmark Channel the most-watched entertainment cable network among women during the fourth quarter for 12 years running.
What’s the draw? “Comfort and predictability,” said Megan Samarin who, with Wendy Nielsen, reviews Hallmark Channel programming on the podcast Girls Gone Hallmark.
“When you know nothing bad will happen, you can relax and let the movie wash over you,” said Samarin, 47, who lives in Orange County, Calif. “I can trust that it won’t keep me up at night.”
The Hallmark Channel mostly doesn’t mess with the storytelling conventions it leaned on with when it debuted 25 years ago: A young city girl falls in love with a hunky flannel-wearing [manly job here] over winter in her bucolic hometown where there is no crime or homelessness and cookies always need to be baked. In recent years, Hallmark has expanded its repertory to include romances between characters who are Black and Latino, gay and lesbian, and Christian and Jewish.
Rina Saltzman, a 68-year-old leader of a theatrical union, said being Jewish didn’t stop her from watching Hallmark’s Christmas offerings well before trick-or-treating season.
“I don’t celebrate Christmas but I love watching other people do it,” she said.
Back in Greenville, it was 10:10 p.m. on Saturday night, and Gray and his tired but somehow still animated friends were still livestreaming, only now they were on-the-spot reviewing “A Holiday Touchdown” for an episode of Deck the Hallmark. There were accolades — “authentic,” “scorching chemistry” — but pans, too, including “just OK.”
At 10:41 p.m., Gray waved to the camera and signed off. He got the last word.
“Merry Christmas!”
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