Inventory of feel-good Christmas movies is growing

Great American Family arrived on the scene in June 2021 as a cable television channel. It is best known for producing Christmas holiday programming and made-for-TV movies.

Great American Family is clearly “in it to win it” – competing head-to-head with the Hallmark channels. Not only is the upstart network striving to attract loyal Hallmark viewers, it’s been busy luring acting talent away from Hallmark.

Writing for The Baptist Messenger, based in Oklahoma City, Okla., columnist Michael Foust said: “Great American Family’s original romantic movies have the same look and feel of Hallmark movies. They always have a happy ending.”

“As for the movie quality, Great American Family films are as good as those on Hallmark, if not, at times, better.”

Foust said Great American Family was launched by former Hallmark executive Bill Abbott to help fill a void – a lack of family programming on television. He pledged that Great American Family would be “relentlessly family friendly.”

 

Candace Cameron Bure is one of the brightest Hallmark stars to switch teams, accepting a position with Great American Family in 2022 as its chief creative officer, to “oversee and curate programming.” She has also continued to perform as a leading actress in Great American Family’s Christmas movies.

 

Some entertainment industry observers suggest that Great American Family intends “to keep traditional marriage at the core” of its family friendliness approach to filmmaking.

Bure told Jillian Pretzel of People magazine: “I have long wanted to find a home for more faith-based programming. I am grateful to be an integral part of a young and growing network. People of all ethnicities and identities have and will continue to contribute to the network in great ways both in front of and behind the camera, which I encourage and fully support.”

Bure said her primary interest is “in celebrating God’s greatness in our lives through the stories I tell.”

Candace Cameron Bure, 49, of Panorama City, Calif., was a mainstay of early Hallmark Christmas films. Her first movie with Hallmark was “Moonlight & Mistletoe” in 2008. Bure starred in 10 Hallmark Christmas films during her affiliation with Hallmark that spanned 13 years.

 

Another highly decorated Hallmark veteran to cross over to Great American Family is Danica McKellar, 50, of La Jolla, Calif., who agreed to a multi-picture deal in 2022 to star in Christmas films as well as be an executive producer.

 

Audiences loved McKellar’s performance in “A Royal Date for Christmas” (2023). Cast as the owner of Bella Sparks Couture, she takes on a demanding new client “Stefan” (Damon Runyan) to outfit for a week of high stakes meetings and events after his luggage goes missing.

Stefan asks Bella to be his “official plus one” for many of the formal soirees, a request Bella accepts with good humor. She accidentally discovers Stefan is actually Stefan William Francis Brown, the Duke of Tangford.

 

McKellar got her start in television as a teenager, playing the role of Gwendolyn “Winnie” Cooper in  “The Wonder Years,” a comedy-drama that ran from 1988-93.

Other acting professionals who are now Cpart of the Great American Family “family” include Nick Bateman, Rukiya Bernard, Cindy Busby, Sara Canning, Dillon Casey, Torrance Coombs, Trevor Donovan, Brendan Fehr, Jennie Garth, Jen Lilley, Sarah Lind, Daniel Lissing, Lori Loughlin, Cameron Mathison, Debbie Matenopoulos, Matthew MacCaull, Sam Page, Merritt Patterson, Becca Tobin, Jill Wagner and Dewshane Williams.

 

Viewers aren’t really taking sides or showing firm allegiance to either camp. Rather, they are relaxing in their recliners and flipping back and forth between the Hallmark and Great American Family channels, depending on what’s on – over-dosing on happy holidays movies.