Wrapping up Countdown to Christmas!

Wow, what a season! I hope everyone was able to fill out their bracket and play along. We know there were a lot of tough choices and a few of clear winners in the bracket. Check out my bracket below and let us know if you agree.

Early Round: October 27 – November 21
The early round was really good, like all time good. Hallmark really knows what they are doing. They opened the season with some of the best movies of the year to set the tone. Hallmark is not playing around!

Christmas At Pemberley Manor, Road to Christmas, Christmas in Love, and Christmas in Evergreen: Letters to Santa were all feel good light hearted movies that should not be missed.
Christmas Joy was another excellent film, but falls more into the serious movie category.
Best of the early round goes to Christmas in Evergreen: Letters to Santa! This was everything you wanted in a Christmas movie. As a sequel, it really built off one of 2017 season’s best movies. Here’s hoping next season we get a glimpse at Evergreen again.

Middle Round: November 22 – December 8
I think the middle round slowed down a little. I mean, this is a lot of movies to make. They can’t all be amazing.

Pride, Prejudice, & Mistletoe and A Shoe Addict’s Christmas were both ones I had penciled in as top contenders. However, I didn’t really feel the magic for either.
Fun movies in the middle round that DID have plenty of magic were: Christmas at the Palace, Mingle All the Way, and Homegrown Christmas.
The top film of the middle round was a more serious film, Christmas Everlasting. I usually don’t go for the serious movies. But this one was really good and benefited from a weaker bracket.

Late Round: December 9 – December 29
Going into bracket prime time, I was super pumped to see how the late round bracket would play out. There was no holiday movie fatigue setting in!

This bracket started out good, but I was really waiting for that season’s best movie to take us to Christmas. That film came on December 22 with Jingle Around the Clock– it was so good. This was the late round winner and nearly the perfect Hallmark holiday film!
For those who don’t want the season to end, Hallmark gave us one more movie, A Midnight Kiss, after the actual holiday. Yes, this was technically a New Year’s Eve movie, but it still had the Christmas setting and feeling. While I don’t think I would ever be able to name a New Year’s movie the best Christmas movie of the year, it did fare well in the late bracket and is totally worth watching!

This season had a number of surprises. I believe Hallmark switched around the order of movies a bit- but that just made the bracket more exciting. Another great surprise was how many times movies mentioned people or products from other movies. It was fun to find all these little ‘Easter Eggs’ like a superhero universe movie!

Are you ready to crown the winner? Our big winner of the season was Jingle Around the Clock! But what is the list of the season’s best? Here are the movies you can’t miss – I am sure they will be in heavy rotation next year!

Thanks for playing along with us this holiday season!

*Header photo from Hallmark Channel official site.