Whether or not you like them or detest them, tv Christmas motion pictures are a vacation season staple. The romance, the snowy landscapes, the superbly adorned properties and the acquainted tales present thousands and thousands of viewers with consolation and pleasure in December (and even November for some with a looser definition of the vacation season).
After all, a few of that comforting familiarity comes from the conventions that are actually anticipated in a community Christmas film — for instance, the thought of reconnecting with a highschool sweetheart, or the presence of an older, bearded gentleman who could or will not be Santa Claus.
So when Hallmark and Lifetime motion pictures begin incorporating issues like pickleball and NFL gamers into their slates, it’s sufficient to show some heads.
Lifetime’s “A Pickleball Christmas” (premiering Saturday) and Hallmark’s “Vacation Landing: A Payments Love Story” (streaming now on Hallmark+) every present that recent hook right into a Christmas story, but romance and the vacation spirit stay at their cores.
A Christmas Day event during which Luke (James Lafferty) and Caroline (Zibby Allen) compete is on the climax of Lifetime’s “A Pickleball Christmas.”
(Sydney Wong / Lifetime)
Cable tv motion pictures are capable of capitalize on fashionable sports activities like pickleball or buzzy groups just like the Payments due to the breakneck tempo at which they’re produced. Tapping into extra area of interest situations, hobbies and sports activities groups permits the networks to ask new audiences in, whereas retaining their loyal viewers glad with a break in method.
The thought for “A Pickleball Christmas” was born out of a South Pasadena pickleball membership. Sami Ponoroff, senior supervisor of programming for Lifetime, is an avid participant and a member of a membership known as iPickle. She talked about the thought of a pickleball vacation film to a professional teacher there, Blake Rutledge. Fortunate for them, Rutledge can be a author who had been engaged on a pickleball-related script.
From there, the 2 dove into growth. It was “kismet” that they occurred to fulfill via the game on the heart of the film, Ponoroff stated. When Ponoroff initially introduced the thought as much as the film’s eventual govt producer, Karen Glass, her first thought stated all of it: “After all, there has to be a pickleball Christmas film.”
Whereas there are mentions of dinking and pickleball kitchen guidelines within the film, you don’t should be accustomed to the game or its specifics to understand the story. Ponoroff credit Rutledge with making a stability between giving pickleball fanatics what they need whereas not isolating non-players. Since he teaches newcomers, he is aware of introduce individuals to the game nicely, she stated.
The identical is true of “Vacation Landing.” Whereas members of the Payments Mafia, because the workforce’s fan base known as, will admire the photographs from Highmark Stadium and the various cameos from each present and former gamers and different Payments figures, even viewers who root for rival groups (or no workforce in any respect) would possibly discover one thing they like.
Samantha DiPippo, Hallmark’s senior vice chairman of programming, joked that there was a secret recipe to a Hallmark Christmas film, one which she couldn’t reveal, however the important thing to a Hallmark film is the basis of romance. Referencing “Adventures in Love & Birding,” a film from earlier this yr that additionally performs to the area of interest interest of birding, she stated the premise is “the story simply getting them via, proper? That’s how we’re discovering these two individuals on this film fall in love.”
“Vacation Landing” is the second film to return out of Hallmark’s partnership with the NFL — final yr’s “Vacation Landing: A Chiefs Love Story” was the primary, which “sort of tapped into some loopy zeitgeist second final yr,” DiPippo stated, referring to the frenzy over the connection between Taylor Swift and Chiefs participant Travis Kelce. Kelce’s mom, Donna, even made a cameo within the film.
However Hallmark’s NFL connection relies on way over buzzy relationships. DiPippo stated about 75% of Hallmark’s viewers additionally watches NFL video games.
“Folks watch with the identical ardour, whether or not they’re rooting on their workforce or watching a Hallmark film, and so we wished to faucet into that and make one thing that feels really bespoke for our Hallmark viewers, but in addition NFL followers,” she stated.
The writers and workforce behind the film traveled to Buffalo early within the manufacturing course of and “rooted ourselves in all issues Orchard Park and Buffalo and East Aurora to essentially perceive what the fandom is up there,” DiPippo stated. The Payments’ robust season this yr has been “fairly fortuitous,” she added. “Possibly that’s the Hallmark Christmas magic, proper? Get a film and let’s go to the playoffs.”
Lifelong Payments followers Gabe (Matthew Daddario) and Morgan (Holland Roden) discover love in Buffalo at Christmas.
(David Scott Holloway / Hallmark Media)
Approaching vacation slates with distinctive angles seems to be working for the networks. Hallmark vacation motion pictures have reached 24 million individuals thus far this season and Lifetime noticed greater than 23 million individuals tune in final yr, in keeping with knowledge from Nielsen supplied by the respective networks to The Instances.
“Now we have a extra, perhaps, area of interest focus — regardless that it’s the fastest-growing sport within the U.S., it’s extra of a distinct segment focus — however that turns into the hook that makes the story itself really feel recent,” Ponoroff stated. “There’s clearly going to be a romance in it that may really feel acquainted, however the world itself is new, and that mixing of novelty and authenticity is what our audiences are responding to and coming to us for. Feeling like their worlds, their group, what they’re actually engaged in is being represented on display screen.”
Whereas Ponoroff stated she doesn’t see any indicators of pickleball’s recognition slowing down anytime quickly, and Payments followers will at all times be round, Glass emphasised how the speedy manufacturing works of their favor on this regard too. “A Pickleball Christmas” will land with audiences just some months after Apple TV introduced it was including a pickleball comedy, “The Dink,” from Josh Greenbaum and Ben Stiller to its upcoming slate.
“You could have an thought, and you may be in manufacturing in a month,” she stated. “It’s somewhat bit simpler within the TV film house to connect with developments as a result of the method is a lot sooner.”
Having a pointy eye for what pattern individuals will hook up with is simply a part of the job, Ponoroff stated. “You could have a hunch, you have got a intestine feeling, you type of go down a rabbit gap,” she stated, “and also you hope that it really works.”
She and Glass stated they’re already been kicking round a brand new thought for a mahjong-themed vacation film, and DiPippo equally stated planning is nicely underway for Christmas 2026, together with a film shot at Disney World.
“What’s been so nice is that our workforce is so fast to pivot when we have to, and if we’ve to leap on a second, we will do this too,” DiPippo stated. “They’re actually magical elves they usually make this occur.”
