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Kit Hughes, Colorado State University associate professor of film and media studies, admits that she doesn’t watch Hallmark Channel holiday movies strictly for academic research. “Would I have watched forty of them without having to? No,” she says, and laughs. “But have I watched some this year when I didn’t have to? Absolutely, I have.”
That’s perhaps not a surprising admission; Hallmark movies are massively popular, and professors are people, too, susceptible to the same heartstring-tugging elements — melodramatic as they may be — that many viewers love to experience, especially this time of year. “They do have that sense of coziness that’s so appealing. It’s a hard thing to resist, by design,” Hughest notes. “Hallmark’s brand is cozy.”
And Colorado is a favorite setting for many of those fan-favorite festive flicks (even if they’re not actually filmed here, which seems to be more the case than not). While this state lost the chance to become the home of the long-running Hallmark series When Calls the Heart, the town of Littleton just placed ninth in an Action Network study of American cities where a Hallmark movie is most likely to occur, and tops for Colorado locations.
“Littleton reads like a Rocky Mountain version of a classic holiday town,” says Action Network researcher Kathy Morris. “Festive shopfronts, walkable streets, and a community that feels both lively and close-knit. It’s the kind of place where the tree lighting on Main Street draws everyone.”
“Littleton, really?” scoffs Hughes.
No offense to Littleton, but that description of Littleton seems like one crafted by a Chamber of Commerce. Are there elements of truth there? Sure. Is it idealized? Very much so. It’s like a vision of Littleton, Colorado, from someone who’s never been to Littleton, Colorado.
But that’s no fault of Littleton. Very few portrayals of Colorado ring true to those who live here. From Dynasty to Resident Alien to Diagnosis: Murder, it’s all fantasy. Which is sort of the point.
“Media like this connects with a sincere and genuine fantasy that people have,” Hughes explains. “There’s a reason we find these things cozy. It’s because people want a sense of community and connection. They want family, they want friends. It’s because people want a workplace where they can realize their dreams and pursue their passions.”
That workplace angle is what really interests Hughes, whose 2020 book Television at Work: Industrial Media and American Labor examined the often hidden history of television’s influence on the American workspace. “In a lot of ways, the small business owner isn’t just the hero of so many of these movies — they’re also the ideal American hero,” she says. “They balance the desire for freedom and individuality with a sense of community obligation that is also completely voluntary. These are characters that, through small business, achieve their dreams and establish their identity. They don’t have a boss. They’re free to direct their own time.
“But we know that running a small business can often be Kryptonite to a personal life,” Hughes continues. “It’s actually very lonely. But in these films, the small business rectifies any problems there by also being the unit that brings people together and unites family. It’s how the two romantic leads come together, or how the father and daughter come to connect generationally. The small business becomes the glue that holds family and community together; it becomes the container for all these other fantasies that we have, all these things that make the holidays good.”
And it doesn’t hurt, of course, that a Hallmark movie wraps all these things up with a capitalist bow. “The realities of small businesses are obviously far different,” says Hughes, who says we have to consider what percentage of American businesses count as “small” according to the Small Business Association. “Ninety-nine point nine percent,” she says. “It’s meaningless. That’s not what people think of when they think of small businesses. People have all this goodwill toward small businesses, and they should. They’re important. But legally, when policy is being created around small businesses, the benefits generally do not go where people think they go. The big example of this was the Paycheck Protection Program during the COVID era. Most of that money went to millionaires.”
But that’s the academic take. Yes, the channel as a whole is one consuming and constant commercial for Hallmark as a brand and, yes, it wants to profit from the homespun melodrama of a latter-day 1970s after-school special. But these holiday movies that got their start in 2001 and just keep increasing in production and popularity are also intoxicating in a pleasant, non-threatening manner — because of course they are. They’re designed to be. “What I try to do when I’m thinking about these films,” says Hughes, “and what they might tell us about moving forward politically, is to notice what are the actual desires and fantasies they’re speaking to, even if the solutions they’re offering are often unrealistic.”
Realistic or not, Hallmark Channel-related studies still love the idea of a Colorado Christmas. Travel company Exoticca surveyed over 3,000 respondents across the country — notably, not solely Coloradans — who decided that the top three most Hallmark-worthy towns in our state are Estes Park, Manitou Springs, and Breckenridge, in that order.
“My vote would be for Glenwood Springs,” insists Hughes. “It seems like the obvious choice. It’s where the Teddy Bear was allegedly invented, so…”
Also? It’s not Littleton.
