Hallmark of Culture Rot
Comfortingly predictable plots, trite yet charming storylines, guaranteed happy endings, and unrealistically glamorous decorations, wardrobes, homes, villages, and actors made Hallmark Christmas movies the white noise of my holiday season for over a decade. In fact, the lack of intellectual stimulation required to consume this entertainment is the allure itself.
Like most billion-dollar organizations, Hallmark has been swept up by the waves of progressivism and social justice virtue signaling. Despite a steady introduction of gay supporting characters, I admired the Hallmark Channel’s overall commitment to wholesome productions that never included divorce, cohabitation, or an explicit redefinition of marriage.
Progressivism is never satisfied until it has won the full soul.
That was true until Hallmark Christmas 2025. The 2025 Hallmark Christmas movie season proves to be the nail in the coffin of the slippery slope of yet another corporate sell-out to malignant wokeism. It is no surprise that the progressive agenda was not sated by a few gay characters. Progressivism is never satisfied until it has won the full soul. This year, the perverse took center stage. (RELATED: Where’s the ‘Christian’ in Hallmark Christmas Movies?)
A mother in my small group lamented her experience watching a 2025 debut, A Keller Christmas Vacation, starring Eden Sher from The Middle. She was elated to see “Sue Heck” in a Hallmark movie and invited her elementary-aged sons to enjoy what would surely be a family-friendly, feel-good show. The feel-good was abruptly shattered when two male leads proposed and kissed in what anyone with toddler-level deductive reasoning skills could conclude was their shared home together.
Perhaps Hallmark took criticism about its lack of originality too far. A storyline redefining marriage was certainly new for the channel! The cohabitation theme began earlier than A Keller Christmas Vacation with Christmas Above the Clouds, including not-so-subtle clues of extramarital living arrangements.
My disgust with this season of Hallmark is not limited to its own productions. I have watched in horror a variety of tasteless commercials aired on the Hallmark Channel whose punchlines are thinly veiled and frankly gross innuendos. Target Commercial #7 (2025) and Phillips Sonicare Commercial (2025) are the epitome of lowest common denominator material. It makes anyone consider The Benedict Option when even 30-second commercials on a supposed family channel are hypersexualized.
My disdain culminated last Saturday night. After a laborious day slaving over five batches of Christmas cookies, I was thrilled to sprawl supine on my couch, anticipating a mindless Hallmark debut.
She’s Making a List was Hallmark’s 2025 crown jewel, with top stars Lacey Chabert and Andrew Walker. The premise is charming. Lacey Chabert, as “Isabel Haynes,” works as an inspector for Santa’s naughty or nice list. All is well until the resolution of the movie is Isabel’s Rousseauian revelation that all children are nice. No children are naughty. The criteria of naughty or nice is a social construct. The scorecard of right or wrong is randomly determined by adults. From now on, no children get coal.
This heavily humanistic theme killed my evening plan of mindless consumption. The message conveyed through what could have been a refreshing, innocent plot was one that championed Rousseau’s humanism, gentle parenting, participation trophies, and moral relativism. Social conservatives no longer have the luxury of passively consuming secular entertainment, for the media is far from thoughtless in its relentless, strategic, and patient desensitization of erosive ideology.
It is no surprise that the cultural decline of Hallmark began when Wharton MBA graduate, CNN and NPR veteran, and Peabody Board of Jurors member, Wonya Lucas, took the helm as CEO of Hallmark Media in 2020. Though Lucas left Hallmark in 2023, she successfully advanced the progressive ideals of her alma mater and the radical Peabody organization. John Matts filled Lucas’s open role in June 2025 and has followed well in her footsteps.
Despite Hallmark’s cultural nosedive, I am consoled by the free market. Regardless of what the billion-dollar corporations push, the average American family would still rather watch a Christmas movie without explaining same-sex attraction to a six-year-old. Hallmark’s viewership has declined in direct correlation with its morality. 2024 marked nearly a quarter reduction in viewership, and 2025 is on track for another down year. (RELATED: New Film Might Just Be the Next Christmas Classic)
Instead, many viewers are flocking to Great American Family (GAF), where they can enjoy a movie without rejecting moral absolutism. Great American Family is led by Bill Abbott, Wonya Lucas’s Hallmark predecessor. GAF claimed a handful of Hallmark stars whose values became incongruous with Hallmark’s, including Candace Cameron Bure, who serves as GAF’s chief creative officer. GAF was 2023’s fastest-growing linear cable television network and made the top 25 cable networks in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Though it pains me to divorce Hallmark from my Christmas traditions, I will vote with my viewership and switch to Great American Family. In 2025, not even a Christmas movie can be consumed without discernment. The progressives don’t take a holiday vacation from their fight, and neither can we.
Danielle Henry is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh who enjoys cooking for friends and family, being active outdoors, and serving in her church community. Danielle is interested in policy relating to economics and religion and is committed to reclaiming the American Dream for younger generations.