Photo provided by Hallmark.
The Christmas House is Hallmark’s first ever LGBTQ+ movie. If you’ve ever seen a Hallmark movie, you know that they are all about romance, family, holidays, and some comedy, so the fact that it took Hallmark this long to make a LGBTQ+ movie is surprising. I’ve seen many Hallmark movies with my grandma, and most of these movies are pretty cheesy and made for an older audience. Since a lot of the older generation still does not understand the LGBTQ+ community, it could explain why it took Hallmark so long to make a movie starring a gay character. The Christmas House is about a family with two adult sons, one who is an actor on a soon-to-be cancelled TV show, and the other who is in a homosexual relationship. The family has a tradition of doing a Christmas house, where they decorate their house with as many lights and candy canes and decorations as you can imagine and people come by to visit it throughout the holiday season. It usually takes a month to do, but they’re now cramming it into a couple of weeks, since they decided to do it last minute. Throughout the course of the movie, the whole family, including the son’s boyfriend, work on the Christmas house. But of course, it can’t just be that simple. There is definitely some drama mixed in it all. For example, the actor sees his old highschool ex, who turns out to be the family realtor, is selling his childhood home, which is the reason they’re decorating insanely one last time. The sons wonder why they’re selling the house, which you find out later on in the movie. And on top of all that Brandon and his boyfriend are trying to adopt! But they don’t tell the family because they’re worried it will fall through.
After watching the movie a couple of times I’ve come to the conclusion that The Christmas House is definitely a film worth watching during the holiday season. The movie has a funny script, it’s heartwarming, and has LGBTQ+ representation as well as Lantix representation. I started out with very low expectations for this movie, being a Hallmark movie and all, but it somehow managed to exceed them! Some LGBTQ+ movies don’t let the homosexual couple be very affectionate with each other the same way that they make a straight couple be affectionate, but thankfully this movie succeeded in making the couple affectionate in a way that makes you smile. Throughout the movie they hug, hold hands, they kiss, and it all looks and feels unforced and genuine. The only negative comments that come to mind are most kids my age may find this movie cringey because of the acting and Hallmarkyness of it all. Hallmark’s actors are not always top tier actors and I’ll admit there were sometimes where I cringed due to the poor acting. I think if you can get past that aspect it is a great movie, especially considering the representation it includes.
I mentioned above how my Grandma watches Hallmark movies, so I asked her about her opinion on it to see what the older generation thinks of the movie.She told me when she watched this movie, she felt change. She could feel the change that the world is finally becoming more accepting of the LGBTQ+ community, and she even let out a few tears of joy. In our family we have multiple LGBTQ+ members, which could have been difficult since we’re all Hispanic and Catholic/Christian. Luckily, everyone in my family is very accepting and treats them the same as before. However, we know how hard their lives have been, due to all the trials and tribulations society has caused them, and so my grandma felt that this movie could make kids or adults feel more comfortable and accepting with who they are. If they didn’t have people around them who were accepting, this movie can make them feel like now they do, because according to her, support from a movie or TV show can make all the difference in the world.
I highly recommend watching The Christmas House, especially if you love cheesy romances like the typical Hallmark movies, and hopefully we will be seeing more LGBTQ+ Hallmark movies in the future.
Kaitlyn Lagrimas is a junior at Washington High School, and primarily grew up in Fremont, California. This is Kaitlyn’s first year at the paper, and she is mainly interested in writing about politics going on in the United States right now. Her hobbies include acting, writing, softball, and video making. As of right now, her future plans are to go to a community college, and then to a University in Los Angeles where she will pursue an the acting career.