My Dream Hallmark Seasonal Programming

As part of my effort in de-cluttering my digital footprint, I crunched the numbers on all the movies and television I’ve watched and recorded on different rating websites. From analyzing the data, I came away with some ideas on Hallmark's seasonal programming and some movies they should make next.

Note: This is just my dream idea, not reality.

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January - Winter Escape

For January, the programming block is 'general winter movies.' They are secular, as a departure from the previous months' movies based around Hannukah and Christmas. The movies often have themes of embracing change in the New Year and involve winter sports. A great example is the One Winter trilogy that starts with a disastrous NYE party, involves snowboarding, and the main characters make important life decisions about their jobs.

From 2016 to 2020 the block was called “Winterfest," from 2021 to 2024, "New Year New Movies!” and in 2025, "Winter Escape." The new name of Winter Escape captures the Southern Hemisphere movies like My Argentine Heart which is our winter and their summer.

I hated the change to "New Year New Movies!" as it was a lie. The first year it was only 35% new movies in the app's line-up and kept dropping in the percentage of new movies as the years went on. It seemed like a dumping ground for Hallmark to launch new movies in January they were later going to line-up for other seasonal programming. They were trying to pretend more of the movies were new release than actually were new. The double-dipping still occurred this year, with "The Perfect Setting" being a Valentine's Day themed movie. Weirdly, Hallmark premiered a movie in the Valentine's Day programming, Return to Office, that would have been a much better fit in January with all of us going thought RTO after the December holidays. I'm not sure why they didn't just switch those films.

While I love Hallmark's secular winter programming, I'm frustrated by the recent trend of eroding the winter themes to just pre-launch later year movies and pretend they're made for January. I enjoy the skiing, figure-skating, and New Year's Eve themed romance movies, I don't want to immediately jump into spring programming in January. From my number crunching, I believe Winter in Vail is Hallmark's most successful movie from this programming block, so looking at what fans enjoy, I'm right - January is for winter-themed movies.

February - Loveuary

February gives us Valentine’s Day. Hallmark has tried out a few names for this programming bock: Countdown to Valentine’s Day (2015-2019), Love Ever After (2020-2021), and “Loveuary” (2022-present). The current name is a groan-worthy pun, and I love it. It makes me laugh every time. It also captures that some of these movies are blatantly Valentine's themed while others are just general romance-themed.

Loveuary’s line-up of films is solid. I know made-for-tv rom-coms themed around Valentine’s Day sounds like a lay-up, but sometimes easy things are good. I’m a big fan of Matching Hearts about a wealthy bachelor falling in love with his matchmaker, The Story of Us about high-school sweethearts turned rivals who fall back in love, and The Lost Valentine based on James Michael Pratt's novel with Betty White. The latter two feature greeting cards prominently, as one would expect from Hallmark.

March - Spring into Love

March gives us Valentine’s Day. Hallmark has tried out a few names for this programming bock: "Spring Fling," "Spring Fever," and now "Spring into Love" which matches their new autumn season programming of "Fall into Love." While it doesn't rhyme as well as its predecessors, I understand Spring into Love as it implies more long-term relationships than something like 'fling.'

Spring themed movies often focus on renewal, such as re-discovered or second chance love, and spring sports. Some notable movies include Perfect Catch about second chance love with a baseball star, Tulips in Spring about a tulip farm, and As Luck Would Have It which involves a spring festival and not a St. Patty's festival as you may guess about an Irish movie in March.

"Spring into Love" usually goes into April, which makes sense as Easter is a moveable holiday. Sadly, Hallmark only has 3 Easter movies: Easter Under Wraps, An Easter Bloom, and The Blessing Bracelet. I have a larger post about Easter romance movies, but my main point is none of them are all time favorites and I'd like to se more. An Easter Bloom is the best of the bunch (so far).

April - Austen in April / Spring into Love

So in 2024, Hallmark did a version of Loveuary that was Jane Austen-themed, launching 4 new movies focused on her work. Instead of trying to cram Jane Austen's work with Valentine's Day, I'd like to see Austen get her own mini-blocks in the same way Hallmark has done "foreign travel" and Thanksgiving mini-blocks. Also, with a block dedicated to Jane Austen, when Hallmark shows Pride, Prejudice, and Mistletoe it's not out of place against a Valentine's Day theme. My suggestion is to call it "Austen in April." They can still have room for other Spring movies but also fit this in!

From my calculations, Hallmark has 12 Jane Austen adaptions that vary in their level of adaption. Those 12 could easily fill out a similar block to a Thanksgiving mini-block. Highlights include An American in Austen which is an isekai similar to Lost in Austen from ITV, an all Black remake of Sense and Sensibility, and Paging Mr. Darcy about a literature professor who learns to enjoy life again by teaming up with a Darcy reenactor to win an event.

May - Passport to Love

In 2020 and 2024, Hallmark has "Countdown to Summer" in May and sometimes we get Passport to Love in June. From my calculations Hallmark has at least 32 movies that involve foreign travel. Then there are quite a few that involve travel within North America, such as travelling to a National Park, that we could fudge in. They're already including movies such as Two Tickets to Paradise and A Safari Romance in "Countdown to Summer" so I think it just makes sense to combine these all into 1 section.

This leaves June for it's proper and normal programming of wedding-themed movies, and they can always do summer/spring themed movies for re-runs in May. I have some beef with the Hallmark programming app, because they don't put re-runs in their own section. If Hallmark wants to re-run summer, spring, or other themed movies in May, they should get a re-run section.

June - June Weddings

Hallmark has had a wedding themed seasonal block in June from 2017-2019 and then 2023- present. They tried a lot of things in that gap, including "A Little Romance" and "Passport to Love," but it was a mishmash of movies that didn't fit any particular theme, probably because of filming disruptions around the pandemic. I'm glad that we've gone back to normal.

Hallmark has a ton of wedding themed movies and they all need a home. Notable is the The Wedding Veil series based on Lori Wilde's books and the Wedding March series. The beauty of a wedding themed season is Hallmark can make a wedding sequel to any popular romance movie, as they've done with hits like All in My Heart and Big Sky River, the latter based on the books by Linda Lael Miller.

A good example of Hallmark's weird categorization, Love Under the Olive Tree premiered in June. The movie was scheduled as part of the 2019 Fall line-up but was pulled to be part “A Little Romance.” While the movie obviously features a romance, it makes no sense for June: olives are harvested in the fall. It should have premiered for the Fall Harvest block like originally intended. Another example is Feeling Butterflies was released in March 2023 but wasn’t included on Spring into Love list on the Hallmark app, but was included in June Weddings list. It's like someone forgot to put it on the Spring premiere list so snuck it in on the next season.

July - Red, White, & Love / Christmas in July

Christmas in July needs no introduction. Hallmark is famous for their Christmas-themed movies and they simply re-run them in July or launch new ones they'll re-run in December.

To break-up the Christmas-fest, I suggest Hallmark launches a mini-block for the Fourth of July holiday called Red, White, & Love. Even though Fourth of July themed movies may be light, Hallmark has a lot of feel-good movies about America that could fill out a 5 to 7 day block.

From my knowledge, Hallmark only has 2 proper Independence Day themed movies: Star Spangled Banners, about a family band who must overcome their problems to play in their town's Fourth of July festival, and When Sparks Fly, about a maid-of-honor who runs off with the groom at a Fourth of July-themed wedding. The latter is not great, but it does feature Meghan Markle, wife of Prince Harry.

For Americana movies, Hallmark could include Come Fly with Me, about the Air Force, and Falling in Love in Niagara, which has some gorgeous shots of Niagara Falls State Park. A Royal Runaway Romance involves a road trip through the USA that has great Americana vibes from the California sun to classic, small-town diners.

I must qualify that Christmas Bedtime Stories is consistently voted the worst Hallmark movie on reddit.com/r/hallmarkmovies. That movie is about a soldier whose wife cheats on him while he's presumed missing. Hallmark needs to choose carefully for their military movies. I don't like cheating stories, so would prefer if Christmas Bedtime Stories and When Sparks Fly don't make the made-up category of "Red, White, & Love."

August - Summer Nights

From 2016 to present, Hallmark has a summer seasonal block called "Summer Nights." How long this block extends has varied through the years, but I think it makes most sense for August and pre-Labor Day September.

Summer is a time for vacation and big life changes. Summer Villa is an often-played movie this season about a French summer vacation while Real West is highly rated movie about a family location. Movies about reflecting on life include The Magic of Lemon Drops, based on the book by Rachel Linden that involves a time-loop, or Groundswell, which is similar to How Stella Got Her Groove Back, where a woman re-discovers herself on a beach vacation, except happier.

September - Summer Nights / Fall into Love

Normally September is a mix of Summer and Fall movies as the seasons converge. I was playing around with the idea of a "Back to School" sort of theme, to capture movies like Field Day about finding love in a parent-teacher organization, but I figured Hallmark can just slot those for September in the appropriate theme since the movie is Fall themed.

October - Fall into Love

From 2015 to 2021, Hallmark's autumn seasonal programming was called "Fall Harvest" and 2022 to present is "Fall into Love" which matches their other seasonal programming of "Spring into Love." I adore this line-up of films.

I really love changing leaves, stories about farm harvest, and Halloween, so I'm a big fan of this seasonal programming. A Harvest Wedding has a camp ending to a basic story about a pumpkin farmer and a wedding planner hosting a wedding on his farm. Autumn at Apple Hill is a popular movie about a competing inn owner and hotelier.

Hallmark's Halloween movies are pretty thin. Midnight Masquerade is a gender-flipped version of Cinderella with a Halloween costume party stepping in for the classic ball. Haunted Wedding isn't popular, but does involve ghosts! To fill this gap, Hallmark will often play The Good Witch series which perfectly straddles the spookiness of Halloween with the feel-good vibes of a small-town soap opera.

November - Fall into Love / Countdown to Christmas

November brings us Thanksgiving in the USA however Hallmark has never done a programming block dedicated to Thanksgiving. If they do anything related to the holiday, it's to advertise more Christmas movies. I played around with the idea on whether they should make a specific programming block, but I think they can fit each movie into it's respective category of Fall or Christmas and schedule it on the days that make the most sense. Love at the Thanksgiving Day Parade focuses on Santa Claus coming at the end of the parade and An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving has a lot of snow for a movie meant for Fall, so I understand both those movies being part of "Countdown to Christmas" but being scheduled near Thanksgiving.

December - Countdown to Christmas

Hallmark Channel has had a seasonal programming block called "Countdown to Christmas" since 2009 and it's widely successful. Technically, Hallmark's Christmas catalog dates back to 1951, when Hallmark sponsored a Christmas opera. It was the first sponsored television even in color (citation).

My favorite of the Countdown to Christmas line-up is A Biltmore Christmas, which has a whopping 7.7 rating on IMDB, which is better than some theatrically released Christmas movies like Last Christmas (6.5) and Love Actually (7.6).

Hallmark has slowly tried to be more inclusive with their December movies. From my knowledge they have 7 Hannukah movies. The best is Hanukkah on Rye. They have a double-holiday movie with Kwanzaa and Christmas called Holiday Heritage. Now that Wonya Lucas has left the CEO position, it'll be interesting to see if we get as many diverse movies in the future. I hope so as I thought Jeremy Jordan and Yael Grobglas were a delight!

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How do y'all think Hallmark should they change their programming schedule?