It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Work and routine are put aside, and everything is about family Christmas traditions past and present.
For those of us who sit on the sofa in our most comfy PJs, sipping hot cocoa, cider, or tea while watching Countdown to Christmas, we must be wondering how our favorite Hallmark leading ladies and men spend their holidays.
This holiday season many of our favorite Hallmark stars were asked to walk down memory lane and, share their favorite childhood and current Christmas traditions with PCM. Each memory and upcoming plan evoked strong emotions, and it is clear that these time-honored traditions hold a special place in each of their hearts.
What do Andrew Walker, Paul Campbell, and Tyler Hynes the leading men in Three Wiser Men and a Boy enjoy for Christmas?
Tyler Hynes: “I love Elf on the Shelf. I have an eight-year-old son and he’s thrilled by Elf on the Shelf. It was the best thing that came into our house. And it’s so much fun for me as a dad, and for his mom to put this thing in precarious situations and blow his mind. He still believes fully in it and it’s wonderful.”
Andrew Walker: “Naps. I’m a big nap person. Who isn’t? I’m going to now replace that with there’s a tradition where I take a shot out of a little glass that’s shaped like a boot. And this guy has one, this one has one, and we do the shot together at Christmas, send photos of ourselves doing it as a way to sort of feel connected, and that’s become my new favorite tradition.”
Paul Campbell: “I put up the Christmas tree with the family, that’s a nice tradition now with my boys. Now they have arts and crafts from school that they put up on the tree.
Tyler Hynes agreed with his co-stars and close friends: “That’s when the tree started to get really good, when the crafts come out, the Christmas crafts.”
So, how many famous family members does Ashley Williams of Jingle Bell Run enjoy holiday means with this time of the year? Ashley Williams says there are many celebrities at her holiday festivities, but to her, they are just family.
“This Christmas I’m going to my big sister, Kimberly Williams, who has a farm in Tennessee, and it is just a circus of a farm. There is a bouncy castle, and horses, and several very loud donkeys who are grumpy about various things. There are many dogs. There are also some 200 different guitars and amps for my kids to bang on because my sister’s husband, [famed country singer] Brad Paisley, is a musician. We go there for Christmas and the kids say that it’s their favorite place in the entire world. It’s just this wonderland!”
Rachel Boston, Debbie Macomber’s Joyful Mrs. Miracle:
“Well, with my two-year-old daughter, Grace, it’s been so much fun to celebrate Christmas. She came to our first Hallmark channel Countdown to Christmas kickoff, which we had in October. When we got home, she walked in the door and said, “Mommy, we don’t have a Christmas tree, yet.” It was so obvious to her that Christmas should start in October. So, we immediately put up our tree. It has been really special to be able to celebrate this with her.
One thing my family and I did growing up, on Christmas Eve is watch It’s a Wonderful Life together. So now being part of family entertainment and with everything Hallmark’s doing for the holiday season, it feels really special to be part of people’s holiday traditions.
We always go to a Christmas Eve service, a candlelight service, that I’m extremely excited to share with her. Now that she is two years ago, this is our first year for her to help decorate our tree. She picked out a lot of her own ornaments this year. That’s been really fun to watch her excitement around that.”
Sarah Drew, The Mistletoe Murders, starts her holiday preparations early. “We start on Thanksgiving weekend. We put up our tree and we put on the movie Spirited, that’s our new thing. We make some Manhattans and we decorate our tree with the kids. So that’s when we kick off Christmas in our home.
I record a Christmas album every year with a really fun music collective called The Reindeer Tribe. We get a theme and people bring music that they’ve written. We do Christmas carols according to that theme. And then we record it over this one weekend. It’s so much fun. That’s one of my favorite traditions.
My other favorite Christmas tradition is as a family we decorate ornaments and then go around our block and do a Christmas caroling party where we hand out the ornaments we’ve decorated and carol for the neighbors.”
The cast of the Hallmark series, Holidazed chimed in:
Dennis Haysbert: “For me, it’s the whole family from the little kids up through the grown-ups standing around the table, food is on the table and we’re all holding hands. That’s it for me, is the family all holding hands and the energy of that is palpable. No matter what conflicts you’ve had up until that moment; everything’s at peace.”
Ser’Darius Blain: “I look forward to traveling. We started a tradition of surprising my family with a Christmas trip every year. We no longer exchange gifts, so we go on a trip. I can get the gifts, though. I can receive gifts, but I’m giving the trip so I bring them all along. But, no, I do a secret Christmas trip every year.”
Holland Roden: “I have been put in the doghouse family-wise because my stepmom urges all of us to go to Soul Cycle at six a.m. either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. “I love my stepmom and she’s the most amazing Cajun cook. But she is a no-nonsense woman and we must be on our special little shoes that clip into the pedals spinning at six a.m. on a holiday. We do it because we love her and that’s honestly why we do it. It’s not that bad. It’s not amazing, I’m not saying it’s good, but it’s not that bad.”
Noemi Gonzales: “As soon as we get back to the nucleus home my family, the singular home, we’re like what movie are we watching, it is The Grinch or is it Home Alone? That’s definitely something where we’re recharging our social battery for Christmas morning.”
Erin Cahill: “Every year on Christmas Eve, my dad would get us all together on the couch in front of the tree and read The Night Before Christmas. We had all these ridiculous, hilarious, inside jokes. Like when it says, “And placing his finger aside of his nose,” we would all go, “Placing his finger inside of his nose,” and laugh. It’s these silly little touchstone moments where you can laugh at the same joke every year on Christmas Eve and it’s like a conduit for getting in touch with your former self. This joke made me laugh when I was eight and now, I’m 35 and still laughing at it. That’s one of the cool things about rituals.
“In my family, Christmas Eve is the big time for celebration. We play games into the wee hours of the morning wearing our Christmas onesies, and there is spiked cider, all kinds of games, screaming, and laughing. Then we get up and we have a leisurely, lazy brunch. Then we stay in our pajamas all day, eat, and watch movies. We have breakfast food all day because Christmas Eve is the time when we enjoy the big traditional meal. So, that’s our tradition, and we all look forward to it every year!”