We recently had the chance to preview Lifetime Movie Network’s new line up of holiday movies and sit down for an insider chat with the Women of Winter stars of the movies, Melissa Joan Hart, Carly Hughes, Tiya Sircar, AnnaLynne McCord, and Jacky Lai to get the inside scoop about their new LMN holiday films and their holiday traditions.
Melissa Joan Hart directed Feliz NaviDAD which premieres Saturday, November 21 at 8/7 Central on Lifetime starring Mario Lopez and AnnaLynne McCord. Mario plays David Morales, a high school principal and single dad who has lost the holiday spirit after losing his wife a few years ago during holidays and AnnaLynne plays Sophie, a musician who helps bring the love and joy of the holidays back to David.
One of Melissa’s most memorable holidays was her engagement. She said, “Christmas in LA never felt very Christmasey,” compared to growing up in New York.” That year, her mom and sister were in LA and her boyfriend joined them where he also proposed to her. She continued, “This memory of getting engaged on Christmas by the tree and opening presents was kind of a childhood Christmas combined with me moving forward as an adult.”
Carly Hughes stars in The Christmas Edition, where she plays Jackie, an aspiring journalist who is asked to run a small-town newspaper in Alaska, where she finds both career success and romance.
Carly loves creating Christmas Eve boxes for her family. She shared, “When I was still doing Broadway, we have shows on Christmas and Christmas Eve and the day after. Either I didn’t get to go home, or sometimes my mom and my brother would come to visit me in New York. One year, my mom, my brother, my sister-in-law, and my nephew all came and stayed with me in my one-bedroom apartment. That year, I started a new tradition of the Christmas Eve boxes where everyone gets a box. It has a pair of Christmas pajamas, a Christmas movie or a Christmas book; hot chocolate for the kids, and alcohol for the adults. And that’s what we did on Christmas Eve after my show. And so we’ve kept that tradition up.”
AnnaLynne McCord stars as Sophie, the love interest of Mario Lopez’s character, David, in Feliz NaviDAD. She plays a musician David encounters during one of his delivery routes. Sophie reignites the love and magic of the holidays for David who is a single dad who has lost the holiday spirit after losing his wife a few years ago during holidays.
Each year, AnnaLynne McCord’s family would do a shopping spree at the Dollar Tree. She relayed how her family didn’t have a lot of money growing up and one of her fondest memories was getting a Tootsie Roll bank from the store, which she treasured for years, and in which she ultimately saved her change to begin pursuing her acting career. Volunteering her time is one of her biggest passions during the holiday season and she travels to Cambodia to work with young girls through an anti-human trafficking organization. She had the opportunity to see the same smiles on the faces of these young girls when she herself got to deliver Tootsie Roll banks to each of them one year too. “There were enough for all 85 of my girls and I was able to share the thing that allowed me to save the money to get out and follow my dreams and give them to my girls.”
Tiya Sircar plays Ashley in Christmas on Wheels where she heads back to her hometown and relives memories of her mom’s vintage red convertible.
As an Indian-American, Tiya’s first Christmas movie came out of the blue. She had also never heard of or seen any Christmas movies starring an Indian. “It’s just such a refreshing thing to not be pigeonholed and I love that the protagonist, as far as I know, is always a woman in these kinds of films. I think in Hollywood that’s not always the case and I appreciate Lifetime for being so inclusive and celebrating diversity and not sort of letting like stereotypical roles.”
Jacky Lai stars as Suzie in A Sugar & Spice Holiday, which is Lifetime’s first holiday-themed movie featuring a Chinese American family. A Sugar & Spice Holiday premieres on Sunday, December 13 at 8/7 Central.
One of Jacky’s favorite holiday memories is getting her family to celebrate Christmas and create their own traditions. “My family didn’t start celebrating Christmas until when I was 12. I just saw people in school celebrating it and I just thought how wonderful it would be if I just started planting gifts. I was the first to buy gifts and set up this whole Christmas tradition and now it’s gotten bigger and bigger every year.”
Tune in to Lifetime Movie Network’s whole lineup of holiday movies through your cable or on your favorite streaming channels including Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and more. For the full movie schedule, visit mylifetime.com. Happy Holidays!
-Alyson S. Campbell