About Christmas TV History

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Christmas TV Movies

It's Christmas TV movie season!  The beginning of November each year signals the debut of new feature-length Christmas narratives.  Many new Christmas TV movies can be found premiering on the Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, ION, GMC, and ABCFamily Channel.  (There are a few other networks that are debuting one new movie here and there).  You may be surprised to know that this year, in 2012, there will be more new Christmas TV movies released than in any previous year!

Hallmark debuts the 2012's  Naughty or Nice on Sat. Nov. 24th, at 8pm (ET).  The Christmas TV movie stars Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter--who previously starred together on the 1980s sitcom Family Ties.

This month, the Hallmark Channel has already premiered the TV movies Christmas Song, Love At the Thanksgiving Parade, The Wishing Tree, It's Christmas, Carol!, and Matchmaker Santa.  Lifetime has already released The Christmas Consultant, Holiday High School Reunion, and Holiday Spin.  And there are many more new movies being released soon.

The Homecoming is also available for viewing on DVD.

If you're like me, you don't just enjoy watching the new releases but you look forward to watching your favorites from years past as well.  I'm very excited to see 1971's The Homecoming airing on GMC (Gospel Music Channel) tomorrow, Thursday, Nov. 22nd at 7 pm (ET) and again at 9 pm (ET).  This beloved TV movie hasn't been on TV in a few years so I'm delighted to see it return.  The Homecoming is, of course, the TV movie that was initially so well received that it brought about the 1970s TV series The Waltons.  The Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, ION, INSP, and ABCFamily Channel are repeatedly airing the best from Christmas TV movie archives.  Check the individual networks' websites for complete schedules.  Click HERE for my blog post about the INSP TV movie schedule.

Let me remind you of some of the past Christmas TV movies I've written about.  Click the titles for the link to the original posts:

1977's The Gathering

1971's The Homecoming

1972's The House Without A Christmas Tree

1978's Star Wars Holiday Special (scroll down to bottom of long post)

1980's A Christmas Without Snow

1988's A Very Brady Christmas

1992's Christmas in Connecticut

1996's The Munsters' Scary Little Christmas

1997's Ms. Scrooge

1999's One Special Night

2007's Snowglobe

2010's The Good Witch's Gift

2010's On Strike for Christmas

2011's 12 Dates of Christmas

If you're interested in reading more about Christmas TV movies, you can check out my 800 page encyclopedia Tis the Season TV which includes hundreds of made-for-TV favorites.  If you pay attention to new DVD releases, you may have noticed that 1995's Ebbie and 1996's Santa With Muscles are both coming out.  Newly released on Blu-Ray is 1979's An American Christmas Carol

Are you watching any of the new Christmas TV movies this year?  Which of your favorites from years past are you looking forward to watching? 


4 comments:

  1. I have watched a few already, myself. "A Smoky Mountain Christmas," "Thomas Kincade's A Christmas Cottage," "The Night They Saved Christmas" and "Mr. St. Nick". Plan on watching many more. I hoped to get to see "A Very Brady Christmas," but so far it doesn't appear that any station is airing it this year. One I haven't seen since it first aired back in the 80s is "Christmas Comes to Willow Creek." Would love to see that film again, too.

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  2. You gotta love any reunion of John Schneider and Tom Wopat!! Thankfully, "Christmas Comes to Willow Creek" is on DVD. Thanks for commenting.

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  3. Just found out via Locate TV that A Very Brady Christmas will be airing Saturday, December 1st, 2012 at 12:00am. I have already set my DVR. I am one happy cheesy Christmas movie fan!

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  4. Great post I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this interesting and knowledgeable article. watch free movies online

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