Lifetime's 30 New Holiday Movies Includes One Featuring An LGBTQ Romance
Between Lifetime and Hallmark alone, we have 70 original Christmas movies to look forward to this year
Suffice it to say, 2020 hasn’t been a great year for most people. From the coronavirus pandemic, to widespread and ongoing protests over America’s deeply rooted systemic racism, to the oncoming crisis of unemployment and homelessness that Republicans in Congress can’t be bothered to address, to the murder hornets — it’s been a really rough year. If you’re ready to just fast forward to the end, you’re certainly not alone, and Lifetime seems to be on board too — the network is already making announcements about its upcoming season of original Christmas movies including one featuring an LGBTQ storyline.
This is the gift we need: Something to look forward to. Lifetime plans to match last year’s record high number of new holiday flicks this year, with 30 original films scheduled for the Christmas season. According to Entertainment Weekly, this year’s slate will feature Jason Priestley, Robin Givens, Amber Steven West, Ali Stroker, Ed Begley, Jr., Cheryl Ladd, Faith Prince, Daniel DiTomasso, and Marco Grazzini — in addition to the faces you’ve come to count on seeing, like Mario Lopez, Melissa Joan Hart, Kelly Rowland, and Betty White.
That’s not all Lifetime is throwing at us that has us feeling some early holiday cheer. The network also announced that this year will come with its first original holiday movie to center around an LGBTQ+ romance: The Christmas Set Up, which will be about high school friends who reconnect over the holidays.
That’s not the only first in Lifetime’s lineup this year — A Sugar & Spice Holiday, directed by Jennifer Liao and written by Eirene Donohue, will be the network’s first Christmas movie to center on a Chinese-American family. In it, a young architect returns home to Maine for Christmas following her grandmother’s death, and ends up in a gingerbread house-building contest. You know we’ll be tuning in for that one.
Many of Lifetime’s Christmas movies, including The Christmas Set Up and A Sugar & Spice Holiday, are still casting, so we don’t know who the stars will be yet. But we know the perfect stars will be chosen to deliver that cheesy, cheery, feel-good holiday magic we’ve come to expect from Lifetime’s Christmas movies.
And in case this isn’t enough reason to be looking for a fast-forward button for 2020, Hallmark is also already looking toward its holiday season, and plans to debut 40 original yuletide films this year. That means, between just Lifetime and Hallmark, we have 70 movies to help us get in the holiday spirit. Get the eggnog flowing already — we’re ready to watch.
