When does Christmas start? Maybe on Oct. 21

Let’s quit worrying about when the TV season will really begin.
Instead, we’ll jump to a bigger question: When does Christmas begin?
Now we have an answer: It starts Oct. 21, when the Great American Family channel has the first of its new Christmas movies. It has 20 of them, including one (shown here) with Candace Cameron Bure and Gabriel Hogan.
Yes, October –the month before the month before Christmas. It’s 10 days before Halloween and 33 days before Thanksgiving; it’s 65 days before Christmas Day, giving us time for last-minute shopping.
And there will be more, via Hallmark, Lifetime, UpTV and others. These days, the Freeform channel’s notion – “25 Days of Christmas” – seems downright quaint.
Christmas movies tend to be done far in advance, leaving a stockpile despite the writers’ and actors’ strikes. The big networks’ seasons will sort of start Sept. 25, but mostly with a makeshift collection of reality shows, game shows and imports. Then comes the holiday surge.
The field expanded after the Hallmark Channel pulled a commercial that featured a lesbian couple. In the controversy that followed, the channel fired its longtime chief, Bill Abbott, and began an effort to be more inclusive of gay and minority characters.
Abbott then led a group that bought Great American Country, changed its name and hired some of the Hallmark stars – led by Candace Cameron Bure, who also became a GAF executive.
The 20 films were announced today (Sept. 18). One movie stars Bure and another stars her daughter Natasha Bure, A third stars Lori Loughlin, who was Bure’s former “Full House” colleague – and was dropped by Hallmark after the college admissions scandal. laso included are Danica McKellar, Chad Michael Murray, Jill Wagner, Laura Osnes and others familiar to Christmas movie-watchers.
No films have yet been given a specific date, but GAF says its “Great American Christmas” starts Oct. 20, with the first new movie the next day.
It will include at least three sequels and two visiting royals. One, of course, is a prince; the other is a duke who loses his luggage. An American – played by McKellar, a former “Wonder Years” star and a math whiz – gives him a makeover.