Few things are as popular and as associated with the Christmas entertainment season as the Hallmark Channel’s beloved and seemingly endless slate of Christmas movies. For over a decade, Hallmark has been producing sweet and seasonal movies with romantic twists, that often find two total strangers and opposites coming together and falling in love just in time for Christmas.
Though many of these movies follow the same overarching patterns and themes, not all of the Hallmark Channel’s couples are created equal. Some lack chemistry, and some lack a compelling story. But other couples, the following ten included, rank among some of the best Christmas romances of all time.
Christine and Jason (The Christmas Secret)
In the 2014 film The Christmas Secret, Christine (Bethany Joy Lenz) is a single mother who is struggling to make ends meet, who also has to deal with her deadbeat ex coming back into her life and trying to prove she’s an unfit mother. Losing her job and facing eviction just before Christmas, Christine gets a second chance after she saves a woman’s life.
It’s then that she finds herself connecting with a handsome stranger named Jason (John Reardon), who just so happens to be the grandson of the woman whose life Christine saved. After many rounds of miscommunication and mistaken identities, Christine and Jason finally connect and make things work in grand romantic fashion in the film’s final act.
Taylor and Adam (A Gingerbread Romance)
It’s a familiar trope for Hallmark, when two people find themselves paired up for a project or competition. A Gingerbread Romance offers one of the network’s best iterations of this familiar trope, thanks to the strong chemistry between lead actors Tia Mowry-Hardrict and Duane Henry.
Taylor (Mowry-Hardrict) is an architect who might be getting a big promotion she’s always dreamed of, when she finds herself assigned to work in a life-size gingerbread house competition with Adam (Henry), a single dad baker. Though these two initially clash because of their strong personalities, they soon find that work and romance go hand in hand and find their happily ever after together.
Cynthia and Steve (A Perfect Christmas)
The 2016 movie A Perfect Christmas is a rarity in the world of Hallmark’s Christmas romances, as it centers on a couple that is not only together when the movie begins, but actually married. Cynthia (Susie Abromeit) and Steve (Dillon Casey) are a newlywed couple facing their first big family holiday.
It also certainly doesn’t help matters that Steve loses his job, and Cynthia finds out she’s pregnant, and the two are so busy they never get to talk about it until the film’s final moments. But all throughout, these two are unfaltering in their sweetness, their tenderness, and their unflagging support for one another and their dreams.
Lizzie and Robert (Coming Home for Christmas)
In the 2017 movie Coming Home for Christmas, Lizzie (Danica McKellar) finds herself unsure of what comes next in her life. Thanks to a tip from her real estate broker sister, Lizzie lands a job as the house manager of a local estate belonging to the wealthy Marley family, who are preparing to sell the house at the end of the year.
As it just so happens to be the holiday season, Lizzie is tasked with preparing the family’s annual Christmas gala, and it’s through the upkeep of the house and planning of the gala that she meets and falls in love with the mysterious Robert (Kip Bledsoe), the more serious son of the family. Though there are plenty of miscommunications, it’s clear in the end that Robert and Lizzie are made for each other.
Emily and Leo (A Royal Christmas)
One of Hallmark’s “royal loves normal” films, the 2014 film A Royal Christmas tells the story of the romance between Emily (Lacey Chabert) and Leo (Stephen Hagan). Leo and Emily have been together for a while, but Leo has never revealed one key fact to his beloved girlfriend: he is in fact Prince Leopold of Cordinia, a mysterious tiny European kingdom.
What follows is the conventional narrative of a commoner traveling to this lavish kingdom, and trying to prove herself worthy of his standoffish family. Though obstacles arise, in the form of Leo’s tough mother and his meddlesome ex-girlfriend, Leo and Emily make things work in the end, ensuring a modern day fairytale ending.
Tom and Jenny (The Perfect Christmas Present)
The theme of characters inspired by Cyrano - where they secretly romance someone on another’s behalf - isn’t one that shows up very often in Hallmark’s world. But the 2017 film The Perfect Christmas Present essentially takes the theme and, well, perfects it.
Tom (Sam Page) is a professional gift finder who can get to the heart of a person and figure out what will be the perfect Christmas gift. When an old friend asks him to figure out the perfect gift for his girlfriend, Jenny (Tara Holt), Tom and Jenny wind up becoming incredibly close, and, of course, fall for one another, culminating in an incredibly poignant gift reveal.
Allie and Max (Crown for Christmas)
In yet another of Hallmark’s “royal loves normal” classics, the 2015 movie Crown for Christmas finds Allie (Danica McKellar), a recently fired hotel maid, being hired as a governess to the Princess of Winshire. Of course, the Princess also happens to have an incredibly handsome, incredible single father, King Maximillian (Rupert Penry-Jones).
After their first, less than warm and cozy meeting in the New York hotel at which Allie once worked, Allie and Max take a quick liking to one another as she settles in to life in Winshire. Even though his high ranking advisors don’t approve, Allie and Max soon cannot resist their feelings for one another, royal hierarchy and rules be damned.
Marilee and Zachary (The Nine Lives of Christmas)
Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. Cat meets cat. Cat meets cat. There are two love stories running parallel to one another in the adorable 2014 film The Nine Lives of Christmas, which finds aspiring veterinarian Marilee (Kimberley Sustad) crossing paths with unlikely cat owner and firefighter Zachary (Brandon Routh).
Even though these two just run into each other through chance, it’s more than just their cats Queenie and Ambrose - who spawn their own feline love story - that keeps bringing them back together. Despite Marilee losing her job, and Zachary having a terrible girlfriend at first, these two fall hard and fast for one another, and live meowily ever after.
Dean and Melanie (Matchmaker Santa)
It’s an odd recurring motif in Hallmark Christmas movies, that people seem to fall for one another even if one half of the couple is already taken - even by the other half of the couple’s best friend. But that gray area aside, the love story at the heart of the 2012 film Matchmaker Santa is arguably one of the network’s sweetest - and most mischievous, too.
Melanie (Lacey Chabert) is dating a businessman named Justin, and expects to meet his family for the holidays. But when fate (and Santa himself) intervene, she winds up spending the holidays with his best friend, Dean (Adam Mayfield), instead, and even learns that Dean was behind many of Justin’s romantic gifts and gestures. Through being stranded in a small Christmas village, these two connect deeper than Melanie ever did with her own boyfriend.
Darcy and Aiden (A Gift to Remember, A Gift to Cherish)
The best Hallmark Christmas couple of them all just so happens to be one of the only couples at the network who have spanned multiple movies. Starring in the 2017 film A Gift to Remember and the 2019 sequel A Gift to Cherish (also known as Cherished Memories: A Gift to Remember 2), Darcy (Ali Liebert) is a young woman who works in a bookstore whose life is turned upside down when she quite literally runs into Aiden (Peter Porte) while riding her bicycle.
After Aiden winds up losing his memory for a brief time around the holidays, Darcy helps him put his life back together, restoring his memories and creating new ones in the process. In the sequel, it’s Aiden who helps Darcy create new memories, as he picks up a family tradition and builds a Christmas village for her inspired by their life together.
