A very Hallmark Hanukkah

’Tis the season. For Hallmark Channel’s made-for-TV movies, that is.

The cable network, which premiered in 2001, aired its first original, family-friendly, Christmas-themed made-for-TV movie that same year. This low-budget film, titled “A Town Without Christmas,” earned a respectable 5.4 Nielsen rating, or approximately 7.2 million viewers, which inspired the launch of Hallmark’s annual “Countdown to Christmas” lineup of original content.

Last year, “Countdown to Christmas” included 34 new movies that ran from mid-October to late-December, attracted 85 million viewers and, according to AdWeek, accounted for one-third of the card company’s annual ad revenue.

This year, Hallmark is offering 24 newly minted Yuletide tales with such titles as “The Snow Must Go On,” “Melt My Heart This Christmas” and “A Newport Christmas.” That last one features a 1905 socialite who transports to present day Rhode Island after making a wish on a Christmas comet and, in true Hallmark fashion, falls in love by the closing credits. It was filmed in Buffalo.

These highly formulaic made-for-TV movies are loved by many because they are shamelessly romantic, extraordinarily wholesome and pleasantly predictable. They are ignored or mocked by others for exactly the same reasons.

In the past three years, Hanukkah seems to have worked its way into the lineup, with “Hanukkah on Rye” in 2022, “Round and Round” in 2023, and last year’s “Hanukkah on the Rocks.” This year’s “Countdown to Christmas” will be offering “Oy To The World,” where St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church’s youth choir director must team up with the substitute youth choir director from Temple Beth Am, and put on a combined music program for the holidays.

It should be worth missing, for none of the Hanukkah shows to date have been particularly popular or well received by Jewish online critics the likes of Kveller, Hey Alma and Solzy at the Movies. “Gentile-fication” has been the chief concern along with the tendency to cast Jewish roles with non-Jewish actors.

In the spirit of giving this holiday season, I recruited my cousin – a veteran writer of Hallmark and Lifetime TV programming – to take a stab at a winning Hanukkah-themed story made from the essential ingredients that helped define the Hallmark brand. My inquiries are in bold.

Hallmark holiday shows tend to feature attractive but forgotten ’90s TV actors. Thoughts on casting ours?

I’d go with a known commodity as the female lead, so that there is clear lineage between the “Countdown to Christmas” franchise and our new “Hallmark does Hanukkah” installment. Lacey Chabert (“Party of Five”) is a favorite, having been in over a dozen Hallmark Channel films. Danica McKellar (“Wonder Years”) has been in several and has great name recognition. Hallmark veteran Lori Loughlin (“Full House”) would have been another option if not for that whole college admissions bribery scandal thing, which is surely its own made-for-TV movie waiting to happen.

None are actually Jewish, which is apparently not a problem at Hallmark, but I’d throw an Israeli actor into the mix just to cover our backs. A heartthrob like Aki Avni would attract Hallmark’s target demographic of women ages 25 to 54, only we need someone younger and less talented for the male lead – which is code for more affordable since the Hallmark budget will be just south of $3 million.

Let’s go with Danica, for no other reason than she was a teenage TV crush of mine. And I hear Lior Ashkenazi is affordable ever since making the Israeli film “Karaoke” in 2022. Most Hallmark holiday movies tell the tale of a seemingly mismatched couple brought together by forces beyond their control. What about Lior and Danica?

Since English is a second language for our Israeli, let’s make it a distant second and use the language barrier as a vehicle for light comedy, some dramatic miscommunication and something to be overcome so there is a final moment of true and heartfelt understanding and emotional connection. A Hanukkah miracle!

What’s their story?

Our Ari-lite could be the brother of Danica’s dead husband – dead spouses are popular on the Hallmark Channel – and feels obligated to help her raise her children. Hallmark movies tend to have plenty of children on screen. Let’s give her three.

Or he is a widowed foreign diplomat with his children in tow during a mission in the U.S. Their plane is forced to land due to a snowstorm. Local authorities ask Danica, the only Jew in this small American town, to house them until the weather clears. Choose one. Either way, he’s in town for eight days and eight nights and they fall in love. A Hanukkah miracle!

Let’s go with the latter. What small American town?

Hallmark gravitates toward fictional locations with homey, holiday-inspired names like Garland, Hollyvale and Homestead. For our story, I’d go with Little Dreidel, New Hampshire or Semisemitic, South Dakota.

How religious should we make this story?

Hallmark prefers the spiritual or supernatural over Godly. They don’t want to lose agnostics, who are apparently huge card-buyers for secular occasions. Intervention by elves was recently used in “Northpole,” angels helped out in “A Heavenly Christmas” and a storefront Santa worked his way into “A Wish for Christmas.” Perhaps we go with a heavily bearded homeless man the locals call “The Rabbi,” because he spouts non sequitur wisdom while talking to himself.

Let’s talk about production values.

Or the lack thereof. These made-for-TV movies are typically made within a three-week window, so production values are limited though sufficiently attractive to maintain the glossy Hallmark brand and holiday spirit.

Happy ending?

Of course. Silly question.

Sounds like we have the makings of a made-for-TV Hanukkah movie that people might watch. What would the promotional blurb sound like on the Hallmark Channel?

As families in the small town of Maccabi, Maine prepare for Christmas, a snowstorm forces a small private plane to make an emergency landing. Its passengers – a widowed Israeli attaché and his three young children – are stranded on this first night of Hanukkah until the weather clears. Local authorities call on Sara, the young woman who operates the one kosher bakery in town, to house them. Pastry and compassion overcome the language barrier and soon Sara’s house feels like a home. Elijah and Sara’s romance is foretold by the ramblings of an old homeless man who weaves his way through neighborhood trash cans and into our hearts. Starring Lior Ashkenazi, Danica McKellar and Sam Elliott as “The Rabbi.”

And what would the title be?

“Home for the Challah-days.”

Bob Abelman is an award-winning theater critic who also writes for The Boston Globe. Rich Leder is a novelist operating out of Charlotte, North Carolina. This article first appeared in Canvas and on canvascle.com. Reprinted with permission.