Need more Christmas? Hallmark+ has a bunch

Maybe you’ve grumbled that there just aren’t enough Christmas movies and specials on TV.
Or maybe not. Still, there’s a new force – the Hallmark+ streamer – to add to the pile. That peaks on the next two Thursday (Dec. 5 and 12), with “Holidazed” (shown here) and more.
Hallmark+ joins a general overload. For the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we counted 45 new holiday films on basic-cable channels – Lifetime, Hallmark, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, Great American Family, Oprah Winfrey Network, UPtv and BYUtv.
Into that crowd comes this new streaming service with:
— Two mini-series. “Mistletoe Murders,” starring Sarah Drew, concludes Dec. 5. “Holidazed,” focusing on six families in a cul-de-sac, continues Dec. 5, 12, 19 and 24.
— Three “Cherry Lane” films, telling holiday stories in the same house in different eras, from 1951 to 2024. They’re on Dec. 5, 12 and 19.
— And two reality shows. “Finding Mr. Christmas” continues on Dec. 5, 12 and 19; two days later, the winner stars in a Dec. 21 Hallmark Channel movie. And “Ready, Set, Glow” is Dec. 12, 19 and 24.
Both of the reality shows are hosted by guys who also act in Hallmark Channel films; both follow that channel’s feel-good impulses.
“We’re taking 10 actors who have dreamed about getting their big break and we’re making one of their dreams come true,” Jonathan Bennett – who hosts “Finding Mr. Christmas” and is in two of the “Cherry Lane” films – told the Television Critics Association.
Wes Brown — who starred in Hallmark’s recent “Deck the Walls” — hosts “Ready, Set, Glow,” which visits families with spectacular holiday lighting.
“It was never about the lights,” he insisted. Instead, it’s about the people who create the displays. “One gentleman raised over $3 million for juvenile diabetes, and it all started with a small light show, 20 years ago.”
“Holidazed” takes some traditional themes, then multiplies them. “There are lots of surprises, lots of twists,” promised writer-director Gina Matthews.
Her scripts had 37 actors in six families in one cul-de-sac. It blends familiar Hallmark faces — Erin Cahill (shown here with Ian Harding), Lindy Booth, etc.) with people who are better-known elsewhere, including veteran actors Dennis Haysbert, Virginia Madsen, Loretta Devine and John C. McGinley. Most episodes focus on one of the families, until the finale nudges them all together.
But throughout, she said, the families intersect. “The daughter in (one family) is dating the son in (another). And these two families are at war over Christmas lights. So it’s kind of this Romeo and Juliet.”
It didn’t turn out well for those two, but there’s a chance it will go better in “Holidazed.” After all, this is still Hallmark.