The Christmas House (2020)
The Christmas House is Hallmark’s first movie featuring an LGBTQ+ couple as key characters. It follows the star of the fictional series
Handsome Justice, Mike (Robert Buckley) as he heads back home to help his family turn their home into the Christmas house. Quickly, Mike learns that this Christmas isn’t going to be as happy and magical as he expects.
Jonathan Bennett plays Mike’s brother Brandon and Brad Harder plays Brandon’s husband Jake. Treat Williams and Sharon Lawrence play their parents. Ana Ayora plays Andi, Mike’s hometown love interest.
The Christmas House was quite different from many Hallmark Christmas movies, in a good way–mainly because it dealt with more somber topics before it got its Christmas cheer. Brandon and Jake’s storyline was a subplot, but an important one as it dealt with them trying to adopt.
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In 2000, the Hallmark Channel aired its first original holiday-themed movie, The Christmas Secret, about a professor who sets out to prove that reindeer can fly, and later meets Santa. In the 20 years since, other networks, notably Lifetime, have gotten in on the game, turning end-of-year programming into a nonstop marathon of tinsel, kisses and Christmas dreams coming true.
But the genre hasn t always brought good cheer to viewers, many of whom noticed a distinct lack of marginalized groups. As Salon s Amanda Marcotte pointed out last December, running down this year s schedule of Christmas movie offerings is like a trip into an uncanny valley of shiny-teethed, blow-dried heteronormative whiteness, with only a few token movies with characters of color. It s like watching The Stepford Wives, but scarier, since the evil plot to replace normal people with robots is never actually revealed.