'Tis the Season for Christmas movies on Hallmark Mystery!
See all of the details below...
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This Time Each Year
Premieres: Thursday, October 24, 2024
Starring: Alison Sweeney and Niall Matter
Storyline: Lauren (Sweeney) and Kevin (Matter) were once deeply in love but nearly a year after their separation, they now focus on co-parenting their young son Charlie (Ezra Wilson). Despite the split, Kevin is determined to make their family whole again. Before Lauren’s mother (Laura Soltis) visits during the holidays, Lauren asks Kevin to pretend they’re still happily married and living under one roof. The act quickly feels more real, stirring up old memories and feelings. As Lauren sees the man she once fell in love with in a new light, perhaps the magic of Christmas will rekindle their romance and spark renewed hope for their future.
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My Sweet Austrian Holiday
Premieres: Thursday, October 31, 2024
Starring: Brittany Bristow and Will Kemp
Storyline: Charlotte (Bristow) is an American, who has lived in Viena since inheriting a chocolate shop from her grandparents two years ago. Since then, she has worked tirelessly to grow the business into a successful enterprise. Christmas is one of the busiest times of the year and Charlotte has been selected as one of the finalists for Vienna’s chocolatier of the year. Taking home the prize could provide some much-needed money to fend off a large developer from taking over her grandparents’ shop. Charlotte soon meets and befriends Henry (Kemp), and they bond over their shared affinity for quality chocolate. But a surprising twist of fate just might end their newfound relationship on a bittersweet note.
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Five Gold Rings
Premieres: Thursday, November 7, 2024
Starring: Holland Roden and Nolan Gerard Funk
Storyline: When New York City painter Audrey Moss (Roden) returns to her small Minnesota hometown for the holidays, she’s met with an unexpected quest from her beloved late grandmother: find the owners of five mysterious gold rings and return them to their rightful homes before Christmas morning, only nine days away. In her bequeathment, Grandma also urges Audrey to team up with local private investigator and childhood friend, Finn O’Sullivan (Funk). From gingerbread house building to the annual Giving Gala, these two begin to bond over more than just their quest. As Audrey and Finn unravel the mystery of the missing rings’ owners, they discover there is more to their relationship than they ever expected to find.
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A Reason for the Season
Premieres: Thursday, November 14, 2024
Starring: Taylor Cole and Kevin McGarry
Storyline: In order to earn her trust fund, Evie (Cole) is tasked with granting Christmas wishes to the people who saved her life on the night of her birth. To aid in her cause, she employs Kyle (McGarry), a handsome local attorney, to track down those who helped and attempts to secretly learn what they might want while maintaining her anonymity. With Christmas fast approaching, the heiress and the attorney can’t resist falling for each other's charms as they ramp up their gift giving efforts. But as time ticks down, will she be able to accomplish the mission and grant all of the wishes by Christmas Eve?
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A Novel Noel
Premieres: Thursday, November 21, 2024
Starring: Julie Gonzalo and Brendan Penny
Storyline: A successful New York City book editor (Gonzalo), who is losing touch with her passion after a few setbacks this year learns she was chosen to run a bookstore in the small town of Saint Ives for the month of December. While realizing a childhood dream, but butting heads with the handsome son (Penny) of the bookstore owners, she comes to realize that her love for bringing out the creativity of others is still her true calling, and untapped talent (and love) can be found anywhere... even in the writings of a cranky business-minded man, especially at Christmas.
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Christmas Under the Lights
Premieres: Wednesday, November 27, 2024
Starring: Heather Hemmens and Marco Grazzini
Storyline: Emily (Hemmens) is always reluctant to return home to her family’s animal rescue ranch -- but when her mother passes away, her brother Nick requests her help organizing the annual Christmas Carnival. When she arrives, she discovers Nick’s friend, Luke (Grazzini), staying at the ranch -- and that Luke was once a successful artist who works with light. Though initially reluctant to collaborate, Emily and Luke work hard to pull off the best, most light-filled carnival the town has ever seen, a healing celebration of Emily’s mother’s legacy and the magic of Christmas -- and along the way feel sparks of romance as radiant as the lights themselves.
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A Dance in the Snow
Premieres: Thursday, December 5, 2024
Starring: Erica Cerra, Mark Ghanimé, Vanessa Burghardt and Dorian Giordano
Storyline: Melanie’s (Cerra) 17-year-old autistic daughter Jenny (Burghardt) is a senior in high school and looking forward to college. After a bad experience her junior year, Jenny is not interested in attending her final Christmas dance before graduating. Melanie decides to surprise Jenny by getting involved in the school’s planning committee to create a welcoming dance for all students. Meanwhile, Jenny and her friends secretly plan their own party, in part to honor Melanie. Melanie works with Jenny’s literature teacher (Ghanimé) on the dance and starts to fall for him while Jenny develops something special with a new classmate (Giordano) at school. When their secrets snowball, however, their plans begin to drive a wedge between the usually tightknit mother and daughter at the holidays.
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All I Need for Christmas
Premieres: Thursday, December 12, 2024
Starring: Mallory Jansen and Dan Jeannotte
Storyline: Maggie (Jansen) has been trying for years to break in as a singer/songwriter. Now faced with challenges of new apps and social media, Maggie fears she’s outdated and unable to compete in a tech-savvy world. While helping her parents on their farm at Christmastime, she meets Archer (Jeannotte), an entrepreneur who has come back to town to spend the holidays alone. Archer is developing large-scale apps and is a tech enthusiast. At first, Maggie blames him for all of her songwriting woes. To her surprise, he encourages her to get back in touch with music that really matters and write from the heart; tech can be used in a supportive role to help her achieve her dreams without replacing the art of songwriting. Archer is dealing with loss of family, and through her tight family bonds, Maggie helps Archer find ways of moving beyond years of family feuding. In this holiday romance, Maggie and Archer both discover there is merit in preserving the tried and true while making room for new ideas and methods to bring people together and help make dreams come true.
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Trading Up Christmas
Premieres: Thursday, December 19, 2024
Starring: Italia Ricci and Michael Xavier
Storyline: Michelle (Ricci) is the dreamer of her family, always brimming with imaginative ideas to make the world a better place. This Christmas, her sister Keri desperately needs a new home, and Michelle hatches a creative plan to help. Starting with just a Christmas stocking, she sets out to trade her way up to something far greater—a house for Keri. While Keri dismisses it as a far-fetched idea, local reporter Dan (Xavier) is intrigued. Assigned to cover Michelle's story, Dan follows her closely, and as her plan gains attention, he starts to see the world through her hopeful eyes. As Michelle and Dan grow closer, so do their feelings for each other. But when it seems her plan has failed and she fears ruined her relationship with Keri, Michelle is ready to give up. It's Dan’s love and belief in her that reignites hope just when she needs it most.
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Joyous Christmas Blessings,
Net🎄
Looks like another wonderful (and hopefully clean all the way through) lineup! (though, I'm not too happy about being interested in Kevin and Taylor's new movie).
ReplyDeleteReally surprising to see Dayspring's new movie at the main channel this year.
For 10 years now, this yearly lineup has always been the 1 I look forward to the most because of it's deep and more emotional stories, and I hope this year lives up to that exception. -Maria
Of the above on paper the ones that appeal to me are :
ReplyDeleteFive Gold Rings with Holland Roden and Nolan Gerard Funk
A Reason For The Season with Taylor Cole and Kevin McGarry
All I Need For Christmas with Mallory Jensen and Dan Jeannotte
Mallory and Dan are the best pairing but he is suffering family loss and I'm hoping beyond hope that his character hasn't been married before.
I think it's on this Channel that the new Jessica Lowndes movie is to aired but they're keeping the name of her co-star under wraps.
Also lovely to see Taylor Cole back.
The proof of the pudding will, of course be in the eating - last year a lot of what I was expecting to be good wasn't and vice versa.
Florence
Another wonderful lineup
ReplyDeleteTrading Up reminds me of a real story a few years ago. I'm sure it loosely inspired the idea.
ReplyDeleteMost of these sound great! Excited for mystery at Christmas time!
ReplyDelete~Paula
Are we going to see a Christmas Mysteries movie on Hallmark Mystery during the Miracles of Christmas?Similar to Murder She Baked:A Plum Pudding Mystery
ReplyDeleteNo Christmas movie for Michael Rady
ReplyDeleteApparently This Time Each Year is Alison Sweeney's 30th movie for Hallmark - Florence
ReplyDeleteSo far, in terms of what I can see, it appears as if HFAM may be planning on airing Christmas movies on the weekends during the time in which Hallmark brand’s Christmas programming is taking place. I can only see 3 days so far, Saturdays 10/19/24 & 10/26/24 & Sunday, 10/20/24. However, I can see when some of the movies will air again. Some of the movies are from the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. I know some of you, myself included, often wonder why the Hallmark brand doesn’t air more of its Christmas classics. Some of you have even contacted the brand about it. Well, thanks to those who have done that as it appears as if they are really listening. Merry Christmas! PS: I apologize as if this has already been mentioned/posted about.
ReplyDeleteI am the one who posted about HFAM. I don’t know if I commented here or above. I am aware that there are lots of people who don’t have HFAM. I still think it’s great that HFAM appears to be airing Christmas classic movies on weekends starting 10/19. If you get any Hallmark channels, please go to the Hallmark TV app on smart TV or other devices and see if you get more Hallmark channels, than you usually do when the live channels appear. You can also go to the top of any of Hallmark channels’ webpages, and you will see that one of the icons is Hallmark TV. Click on it. This is Hallmark’ TV’s everywhere function if you are familiar with that on other apps. What I think happens here is that the system doesn’t know which specific Hallmark networks you have just that you have access to the Hallmark Channel itself. So, for instance, if you only have the tier that includes Hallmark Channel, but your provider offers HM on a higher tier, you should be able to get HM on Hallmark TV. You can only watch the networks live via Hallmark TV., no DVR function. I don’t think you can put screen shots in comments, but if you could put them on here, and I knew how to do screenshots at all (Ha, Ha!), I would put them on here because I think visuals would be helpful. I believe that some people who don’t use apps may think this doesn’t help them or think that Hallmark Channel and Hallmark TV are the same thing, and they are not. If you are not using Hallmark TV, you are also missing out on catching a movie you may have missed or one you haven’t seen in awhile by streaming it free. The selection changes periodically. Besides Frndly TV and the other providers often mentioned, please remember if you pay for a tier on Peacock, you also get the live TV of the 3 networks plus a selection of streaming movies. If someone else is paying the bill, you may have forgotten that someone in your house has Peacock for sporting events, etc. Don’t you miss out on the opportunity to use it too! :) :). i am sorry that this is so long. and I know people have commented:Net has posted about these things, but I thought especially free Hallmark TV deserved another mention. Again, Merry Christmas!
ReplyDeleteMy Sweet Austrian Holiday. Semi-sweet movie, but lacking effervescence and chemistry. Nevertheless, I think others will like this movie much more than I did. The Christmas in Austria angle was nice, simply because I love seeing the architecture and cozy Christmas displays of old European cities. But the multiple storylines were tired and overused and not really acted/directed/written to be anything unique or special or plausible. And I felt like the two sidekick characters were better than the leads. I love Will Kemp, but this just wasn’t his best performance (he’s more vivacious and the romance is more believable in his movies with Lacey). I like Brittany - she has a naturalness about her - but I’ve yet to see her in a starring romantic role where her performance was all that great (“Just Jake” would be my favorite, so far). I rarely feel the romantic tingles when she plays the lead (it’s as if she herself hasn’t really bought into the romance of her character); for me, she’s much better as a secondary or sidekick character (she seems to shine better in those roles). I thought about deleting this at the halfway point but decided to watch the second half in a sort of fast-forward style. The best line came near the end when Will makes a quip about his dance skills that’s funny if you’ve seen his other movies and know his dance background. But then they ruin that fun moment by throwing in a completely hokey, over-the-top and unrealistic dance scene where a more reserved and quieter one would have been better. For a cute, predictable, run-of-the-mill Christmas movie, this one isn’t bad, and is fine if you’re in the mood for some cozy Vienna Christmas scenes, but it’s just not a keeper, for me. It’s family friendly, although it’s vaguely implied that the dead grandmother is communicating her approval (or whatever) through a cuckoo clock that chimes at opportune moments. ~~Jane (aka Jane-gle Bells)
ReplyDeleteFive Gold Rings. Didn’t knock my fuzzy Rudolph socks off, but it was cute enough for a one-time watch. It moved a little slowly and was, at times, cheesy and awkward, but, nevertheless, I quite liked the premise and the mystery angle and the fun search for the owners of the five rings (I believe that the writer for this also wrote the Mystery 101 series.) Holland was good in her role and basically carried the movie; the lead guy was okay but rather stiff; there was a smidgen of chemistry but the whole romance felt somewhat clumsy, to me. I thought I read somewhere that this was a faith-based movie but I did not pick up on any real Christian faith elements; in fact, there was one line about the deceased grandmother’s body being gone but her spirit still being around that might have been a comforting thought for the family, but it wasn’t biblical. Otherwise, it's family friendly. This movie’s not a keeper for me, but it might be a good one for families with mixed-age children because the main focus is more on the mystery search than the romance. ~~Jane (aka Three French Hens)
ReplyDeleteA Novel Noel. First off, there is one blip in the movie that is not family friendly. Second, it’s not really a keeper anyway so you wouldn’t be missing anything by skipping it. The writing seemed disjointed and the acting felt “phoned in”. It was as if somebody had a good idea for a cute, warm Christmas story (albeit, with some overused plotlines) and they wrote a general outline or partial story. But then someone else came along and wrote the rest of the script and bungled the original idea. There are glimmers of a good movie in there but the final product feels, for the most part, unnatural and contrived. As if no one could figure out how to seamlessly combine the two different writing styles. It seemed like the writers were grasping at straws to create conflict or sparks between the two leads, but what they intended as cute bantering and bickering was instead ridiculous and rude and snippy. And there were too many things that simply weren’t realistic. (It makes me wonder if some bigwig called in a favor for his mother-in-law who has always wanted to write a Hallmark Christmas movie?) But to be fair, it wasn’t all on the writer’s shoulders. It felt like the two lead actors were on autopilot through most of the movie; I like them both in other movies but this just felt like I was watching them recite their lines and, for the most part, I wasn’t “feeling” any real romantic chemistry (although, there were some sweet moments). The overall movie atmosphere was warm and cozy, and there were a few cute, unique elements to the story, and the relationship did improve in the second half, but it just wasn’t enough to make it a keeper, for me. It had the potential to be a good movie but too much of it felt kind of lame and forced… a weird cross between “phoning it in” and “trying too hard”. Also, it’s not friendly for the entire family. I’m guessing Hallmark had to pay their holiday season dues to the DEI mob so they added one brief scene at about the 15-minute mark. The male friend who owns a British pub says “years ago I fell in love with Henry, a local carpenter, and followed him back here and we built the pub together… He passed five years ago”. That’s all we hear of that story angle. So, if you're an adult and can get past the DEI blip, then I think it might be okay for a one-time watch. Maybe? Maybe not? Probably not. ~~Jane (aka Hoof Prints on Her Forehead)
ReplyDeleteHey Jane-gle - I am in agreement with you on this one for the most part. I didn't think the acting was quite as bad as you thought (especially by Julie). But yeah, any chemistry was definitely missing, and the storyline was certainly by-the-numbers. And they definitely could have skipped the "blip" scene - totally unnecessary! For me, this one's okay for a one-time watch, but that's it!
DeleteMark 25, yes, I think Julie was better than Brendan but just not much chemistry between them, although I felt it improved as it went along. I liked the Christmas bingo card (a cute twist on the standard to-do list and it turned out to be even more so sweet and poignant as the story unfolded). I don't think I've ever seen a gift wrapping contest done while wearing oven mitts, so that was also a fun twist on a standard, and the Yule log tradition amongst the friends was special. So, agreed, it was okay for a one-time watch, but it had the potential to be so much better. On to the next one!! ~~I'm Jane-gling all the way!!
DeleteChristmas Under the Lights. Not bad. Not great. Okay for a one-time watch. Didn’t give me a whole lot of warm Christmas fuzzies, but I did find the friends’ party with the white elephant gift game to be fun and warm. I liked the lead male character (and the alpacas and goats he was taking care of!). Didn’t really love the female lead character in this one - the actress was fine, it was just the character that occasionally annoyed me (I liked the actress’s role much better in “Come Fly With Me” with Niall Matter, who, by the way, has a fun cameo here). I think maybe she bothered me simply because she wasn’t actually doing anything (zilch!) she was supposed to be doing for the Christmas Carnival she specifically came home to help with? Or maybe it’s because everything was all about her and her feelings?! Plus, she was obsessed with pestering the main guy to produce artwork to save the Carnival or some such silly thing. Idk? It made no real sense, other than she was overly impressed with the fact that he was kind of a famous artist before he went into hibernation and she liked the fame part(?). However, I did like the slower or more cautious way they approached getting involved. And I appreciated her character grappling with her emotions pertaining to the death of her mother and their relationship, which was shown in flashbacks. One funny flashback was her as a preteen packing to run away and her mother offers to get her some snacks because “the last time you ran away you got hungry” – hah! (I liked the actress that played the mother.) This was family friendly except for a couple of mild things, nothing too terrible. She’s learning to milk a goat and says as she’s squeezing, “I really feel like I should buy her dinner first”, so that was unnecessary. There are a few mildly tacky double entendre. There’s also a scene in the cold winter snow where he gets sweaty chopping wood and feels the need to pull his t-shirt up to wipe his brow and thereby flash his buff abs (eye roll). And there’s a bit of feel-good secular mumbo jumbo pertaining to the spirit of the deceased mother. So, not a keeper, for me, but okay for a one-time watch, and I think others will like it more than I did. ~~Jane (aka Eight Tiny Reindeer... or Alpacas 😂 )
ReplyDeleteMy rankings of Miracles of Christmas 2024:
ReplyDelete1, A Dance in the Snow
2, A Reason for the Season
3, 5 Gold Rings
4, My Sweet Austrian Holiday
5, This Time Each Year
6, Christmas Under the Lights
7, All I need for Christmas
8, Trading up Christmas
-Maria
My review of this lineup:
ReplyDeleteDefinitely not as good as last year's. 1 thing to be thankful for is that Hallmark is even still allowing this yearly lineup to happen. That still doesn't excuse poor quality in some of the movies.
Hopefully next year's movies will be much richer in quality with no duds in sight. -Maria