SPREADING HOLIDAY CHEER ON THE SMALL SCREEN

VARIETY SELECTS THIS YEAR’S TOP TITLES FOR FUN AND FESTIVE, ORIGINAL SCRIPTED FARE

of the film, the journey is for the audience to understand why she is that way. “Because of her tortured past she rejected her town,” Baranski says. Through guidance from an angel (Dolly Parton), reconnecting with an old love (Treat Williams) and making a new familial connection, she begins to warm, though. “There’s something about the unabashed sentimentality. Everybody singing or everybody together, it has that unifying factor,” Baranski says of holiday films.

HAPPIEST SEASON

(HULU)

There are many holidays movies in which a character brings a fake date home to meet the family to avoid awkward “still single” conversations. In “Happiest Season,” it is the opposite: Harper (Mackenzie Davis) is not out to her family so she asks her girlfriend Abby (Kristen Stewart) to pretend that they’re just friends and roommates. Over the course of the film, their relationship is tested due to this secret, but so is Harper’s relationship with the pictureperfect parents that she feared upsetting if she revealed her truth. Co-writer and director Clea Duvall wanted to tell a story that explores how “the process of coming to terms with who you are is something that can look so many different ways” while also depicting the importance of “compassion for people going through it” and seeing that everyone involved “can get through the other side of it and be OK.”

MERRY LIDDLE CHRISTMAS WEDDING (LIFETIME)

In the sequel to last year’s “Merry Liddle Christmas,” Jacquie (Kelly Rowland) and Tyler (Thomas Cadrot) are planning to walk down the aisle for an elaborate destination holiday season wedding. While there is often something extra magical about a holiday wedding, this one is threatened by the wedding planner quitting at the 11th hour. “Everyone knew we had to go big or go home,” Rowland says. “That wasn’t just with the festivities, but with the location, wardrobe, music, performances, everything. Everyone involved in this movie wanted the soul and love of this family to really shine, and make the viewer feel like they were experiencing every Christmas and wedding drama with this family.” Through the true meaning of the season, though, everyone bands together to help however they can. New and deeper bonds form and a lesson is taught about what is really important in life.

PEOPLE PRESENTS: ONCE UPON A MAIN STREET (LIFETIME)

Two hopeful businesspeople Amelia and Vic (Vanessa Lachey and Ryan Mcpartlin) each hope to purchase the same property for their dream stores and decide to win over the owner (Patrick Duffy) by taking over his decorating duties for the town’s annual Battle of Main Street holiday competition. Their task is not easy: They not only have to put aside their own differences to work together, but also get the townspeople to do the same. “They bicker, they poke, but it’s all from a good place,” Lachey says of Amelia and Vic’s relationship. Of course, it wouldn’t be a holiday film without a budding romance at the center of the story. But, she notes, it’s a “different type of fireworks than people are used to seeing for a holiday movie” because it’s not about “running into an old flame [but] discovering a new one and the possibilities.”

A SUGAR & SPICE HOLIDAY (LIFETIME)

What says it’s the holiday season more than baking? In “A Sugar & Spice Holiday” Suzie (Jacky Lai) has a family tradition to uphold in her hometown’s annual gingerbread house competition because her recently deceased grandmother had been a beloved, champion baker. “Suzie has a really deep connection with her grandmother that lives on even after her passing,” Lai says. “In the Asian culture, we have shrines in our homes to commemorate our loved ones. We pray to them and keep them close so they are never forgotten.” Also increasingly important to Suzie is an old friend from high school with whom she now teams up in the competition (Tony Giroux), giving the film a rom-com feel that Lai describes as similar to “Always Be My Maybe.” “It had a really beautiful message and showcased the Chinese culture and family dynamics authentically. I thought the script was funny and there’s a surprise element that I found really refreshing,” she says.

TALENT RELATIONS, BET MUSIC PROGRAMMING