“The Nightmare Before Christmas” will air Dec. 2 at 4:40p.m. (Charles Rodstrom/Flickr Creative Commons)
While ABC family may have changed its name to Freeform a few years back, it’s still the same television network, which means one thing this time of year: 25 Days of Christmas. Freeform released the full December schedule this week, so go mark up your calendar, make some cocoa and get ready to go into full-time Christmas mode. ‘Tis the season.
The full schedule, which can be found on Freeform’s website, is the most legit movie schedule you’ll ever see. The channel is playing non-stop Christmas movies from 7 a.m. to around midnight every day until Christmas. That’s about 10 movies a day, and every one from Dec. 1 to Dec. 25 is listed online.
It starts at 7 a.m. on Dec. 1 with “Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups” and continues all the way to midnight on Dec. 26, when “The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride” closes off the year. In between, Freeform will be guiding us through the Christmas season with a variety of holiday classics from “The Santa Clause” to “How The Grinch Stole Christmas.”
This year, the countdown includes the premiere of three original Freeform movies: “The Truth About Christmas,” “Life Size 2” and “No Sleep ‘Til Christmas.”
“The Truth About Christmas” actually premieres Nov. 25 but will continue playing throughout December. In it, Jillian, played by “New Girl”‘s Kali Hawk, has a strange incident with a toy store Santa Clause that leaves her only able to tell the truth.
Tyra Banks returns for “Life Size 2,” which premieres at 9 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 2, and “No Sleep ‘Til Christmas” is a holiday rom-com that follows the story of two insomniac strangers who discover they can only fall asleep next to each other. It premieres 9 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 10.
The channel also has several Freeform premieres throughout the month. “Pop Up Santa Holiday Special” premieres Monday, Dec. 3, at 9:30 p.m., “This Christmas” premieres on Tuesday, Dec. 4, at 4:10 p.m. and “A Belle for Christmas” premieres Friday, Dec. 7, at 11:55 p.m.
On Dec. 8, Freeform will be airing “Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings: Holiday Magic” at 8 p.m., which showcases the stories of several adorable holiday Disney weddings.
But despite all the premieres, this year’s lineup is a bit disappointing. While “Home Alone 3” plays four times next month, the first two movies are absent from the list. As are classics like “The Polar Express,” “Rudolph,” “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” and “Elf.” Freeform doesn’t have the rights to them or many other Christmas movies this year, leaving the channel to pretty much just play the three “Santa Clause” movies on repeat.
Thankfully, many of those movies will be playing on AMC this season, so we won’t be entirely at a loss.
In general, the list is pretty repetitive and is missing many of the Christmas classics associated with the season. Half the movies scheduled to play are animated Disney classics rather than holiday films.
December is right around the corner, but if you’re one of those people who doesn’t need to wait until after Thanksgiving to start with the Christmas festivities, Freeform will be playing its “Kickoff to Christmas” for the rest of the month. Disney movies, family films and a gradually-increasing number of Christmas movies will be playing on the channel until the 25 Days of Christmas begins.
Courtney Gavitt is a Staff Writer for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at courtney.gavitt@uconn.edu.
