‘Tis the Season! The 5 Top Leading Ladies of Holiday TV (PHOTOS)
Lacey Chabert
Mistletoe Score: 8
The current champ began her holiday hot streak in 2011 as a coed who’s taken hostage in ION’s A Holiday Heist. Since then, she has racked up six Hallmark Channel Christmas movies: Playing a baker in Matchmaker Santa (2012), a seamstress in A Royal Christmas (2014), an anchorwoman in Family for Christmas (2015), a single mom in A Christmas Melody (2015), an office drone in A Wish for Christmas (2016) and a pastry chef in the November 11 confection The Sweetest Christmas. And remember UP’s The Tree That Saved Christmas (2014)? Fir sure!
Candace Cameron Bure
Mistletoe Score: 6
Before taking on the dual role of identical siblings in Switched for Christmas, Bure had already sleighed it on Hallmark Channel as the daughter of a Santa-themed amusement park owner in Moonlight & Mistletoe (2008), a grinchy workaholic in Let It Snow (2013), a burned-out MD who relocates to Alaska in Christmas Under Wraps (2014), a waylaid traveler in A Christmas Detour (2015) and a time-jumping WWII nurse in Journey Back to Christmas (2016).
Alicia Witt
Mistletoe Score: 6
In 2013, Witt waded in with LMN’s A Snow Globe Christmas, portraying a director of—yep!—holiday TV movies. She was then snapped up by Hallmark Channel to play an antique store owner in A Very Merry Mix-Up (2013), a cash-strapped single mom in Christmas at Cartwright’s (2014), an exec who’s suddenly unable to lie in I’m Not Ready for Christmas (2015), a fashion designer in Christmas List (2016) and, now, an aspiring romance novelist in The Mistletoe Inn (November 23, 8/7c).
Danica McKellar
Mistletoe Score: 4
Wonder Years alum McKellar had her first Noel in Lifetime’s 2012 rom-com Love at the Christmas Table, a chronicle of childhood besties who realize that they’re soulmates. After that, she headed to Hallmark Channel, where she’s done turns as a royal governess in Crown for Christmas (2015), a determined store employee in My Christmas Dream (2016) and the estate manager for a fractured family in the new Coming Home for Christmas (November 18, 8/7c).
Melissa Joan Hart
Mistletoe Score: 4
Sabrina the Teenage Witch has traded her pointy hat for reindeer antlers. Hart’s roster includes crime caper Holiday in Handcuffs (2007, ABC Family) with Mario Lopez, playing the do-gooding sister of a grifter in The Santa Con (2014, Lifetime) and Broadcasting Christmas (2016, Hallmark Channel), featuring her and Dean Cain as news anchor exes. Next, she’ll reteam with Lopez for A Very Merry Toy Store (November 26, 8/7c, Lifetime), about (gulp!) rival toy shop owners.
That’s not eggnog-induced déjà vu that you’re experiencing. On November 26, Hallmark Channel will debut Switched for Christmas—about twins undergoing a Freaky Friday–like body swap—starring Candace Cameron Bure…who also appeared in a holiday flick last year.
And the year before that. She isn’t the only one who tends to materialize when it’s time to deck the halls: We rounded up the actresses who make visits as regularly as Rudolph and ranked them (with mistletoe!) by how many movies they’ve gifted us with so far.
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