It’s That Time of the Year Again!

Today’s blog date, Friday, October 25, 2019, is the official kickoff date of the 2019 Hallmark “Countdown to Christmas” on, yes, Hallmark Channel.

This is an annual tradition of holiday movies running through typically the early hours of January 2 of the following year.

Lots of titles. Made on the cheap. But they are reassuring.

I launched Progressives Chat in September 2017. In October 2017, I wrote about this topic here: It’s Almost Here: The 2017 Hallmark Channel ‘Countdown to Christmas’. In October 2018, I wrote about it again here: A ‘Hallmark’ Tradition. I enjoyed the humorous responses by a few Progressives Chat readers in the comments from both blog topic threads.

This is, as you can see above, the 10th anniversary of Hallmark Channel having its “Countdown to Christmas.” Nowadays, sister channel Hallmark Movies & Mysteries also runs the marathon. Its third sister channel, Hallmark Drama, has older titles. The marathon of these movies from at least the first two Hallmarks are a lot. A whole lot. (I don’t drown myself in them.)

This blog is normally for political content. But, to be frank, one can find politics anywhere. It is the form that is not the same everywhere. At Hallmark Channel, the politics is with pushing traditional. It’s also that everyone has to have love. If they don’t have love in their lives—meaning, someone to very potentially marry (and who is of the opposite sex)—their lives are lacking; and, to no longer be unfulfilled, the lead characters will find love. They must. So, these movies are happy ones. We know what the end will be even before it begins. They are reassuring.

We are living in a terrible period, politically, in the United States. And when it comes to entertainment, I like to take a break from the cynical and welcome some feel-good stuff (even if it is fluff). I find, frankly, there to be five or less Hallmark Channel “Countdown to Christmas” titles, in a given year, that I would want to be bothered seeing a second time. That isn’t bad. At the movies, even some which receive recognition from Oscar, it is less.

Christmas isn’t for two more months. We have Halloween next week. We have Thanksgiving next month. But, Christmas is commercialized to a point in which, looking at it from the corporations’ and retailers’ perspective and objective, it is a holiday which can never get an early enough start.