Top 10 2023 Hallmark Channel Christmas Movie Synopses

Though I have friends who are regular comic con goers, I have never attended a fan convention myself, not that I’m judging. If Madeleine Stowe, a.k.a. Cora Munro, ever shows up at a Rosemont comic con, I’m there. More than that, though, when I peruse the list of 2023’s That’s 4 Entertainment Christmas Con in Edison, New Jersey, I start contemplating plane tickets to Newark in early December. The “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” luminaries get top billing but I’m more interested in all the Countdown to Christmas queens. Kimberly Sustad! Lacey Chabert! Alicia Witt! Even Melissa Joan Hart, who might be a Teenage Witch to you but will always be a hard charging event planner, in a manner of speaking, to me. If a Christmas Con sounds like an overabundance of the season, however, try a whole Christmas Cruise! “We hear time and time again that people want to immerse themselves in the world of Hallmark Channel Christmas movies,” Hallmark Media’s Vice President of Consumer Products, Natalie Vandergast, said in a statement regarding a five-day cruise aboard the Norwegian Gem from Miami to Nassau in November 2024, “and this venture is sure to bring our brand to life in a new, captivating way.” There will not only be panels and photo-ops with Hallmark Channel stars, but cookie decorating, an ugly sweater contest, and a tree lighting. 

It sounds like a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie come to life, in other words, in the way a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie might have a character’s Christmas village set come to life, mingling holiday and horror a little too much for my taste. No, I don’t need a Hallmark Christmas cruise, just a Hallmark Christmas movie synopsis. The synopses are plenty for me. Speaking of which, as tradition dictates, here are the ten best Hallmark Christmas movie synopses for 2023.

Top 10 2023 Hallmark Channel Christmas Movie Synopses

10. Christmas by Design. “A fashion designer gets accepted into a Christmas challenge to create a new holiday-themed collection and not only finds the inspiration for her next line but decides to redesign her approach to what’s most important in life.” LET’S GO!!!!!!!!!!!!

9. Under the Christmas Sky. “Sparks fly between astronaut Kat and by-the-book David when they work on a planetarium exhibit that's opening right before Christmas.” What do you think, will the stars align?  

8. Checkin’ It Twice. “A journeyman hockey player falls for a real estate agent in a career crisis when he’s traded to her hometown and moves into the cottage in her hockey-loving family’s backyard.” I mean, if that backyard doesn’t get transformed into a hockey rink that saves Christmas, what are we even doing here, Hallmark?

7. An Ice Palace Romance. “A journalist faces old fears when she returns to her hometown ice rink to cover a story. With the help of the owner and his young daughter, she begins to reevaluate her life’s purpose.” It’s just nice to know that in the world of Hallmark, the prominence of local journalism continues unabated. 

6. A Biltmore Christmas. “It follows Lucy as she’s hired to write the script for a remake of a holiday movie. She joins a tour of the grounds and when she knocks an hourglass over, she finds herself transported back in time to 1946.” 1946? Shouldn’t this be transported back in time to 1991? So that Madeleine Stowe can appear as herself in a Cora Munro costume? (Can Hallmark drop a Madeleine Stowe / Daniel Day-Lewis Christmas movie in the middle of next December without telling anyone, like a Taylor Swift surprise album? A Boar’s Head Christmas?)

5. Catch Me if You Claus. “Avery Quinn’s shot at anchoring news clashes with a Santa-suited intruder, Chris, who insists he’s Santa’s son on a first Christmas mission. They unravel a career-making story together.” Career and Christmas can co-exist! 

4. Where Are You, Christmas? “Addy wishes for a year without Christmas and she wakes up in a world of black and white. She must work together with the town mechanic to restore Christmas.” Like “Last Christmas” took Wham! literally, so does “Where Are You, Christmas?” take Faith Hill to the letter, it would seem, combining “It’s a Wonderful Life” with “Pleasantville” and leaving me to dream of next year when Great American Family produces a word for word translation of De La Soul’s “Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa.”

3. Holiday Hotline. “After leaving London, Abby works for a cooking hotline and connects with an anonymous caller, a single father who Abby is unknowingly smitten with in real life.” Written by the unknown fifth Ephron sister, Vidalia. 

2. The Santa Summit. “Jordin returns home to regroup after setbacks and attends the town’s annual holiday celebration with friends. She bonds with Liam but doesn’t get his name before they’re separated in a sea of Santas.” Sort of the clean version of Santacon.

1. Everything Christmas. “Christmas enthusiast Lori-Jo embarks on an epic three-day road trip with her workaholic best friend, Victoria, to a town where it’s Christmas all year round.” This is #1 because, honestly, while I know Hallmark will churn out another 20 or 30 of these movies next year, I also can’t quite grasp where else there is to go, as if the expansion of the Hallmark Christmas universe has finally stopped and in the space of this movie, finally collapse in on itself.