Hallmark Channel may celebrate ‘Christmas in Evergreen,’ but it started in Kansas City

It used to be that Hallmark Cards Inc. in Kansas City busied itself with greeting cards and gift shops, paying little mind to its holdings in Los Angeles, Crown Media, churning out made-for-TV movies.

It was Christmas that brought them together.

As the Hallmark Channel’s “Countdown to Christmas” programming has grown in popularity, becoming a cultural touchstone in recent years, the leadership at headquarters saw an opportunity.

Now collaboration rules the day, with the channel’s Christmas movie-themed merchandise piled on the shelves of Hallmark stores this holiday season: coffee mugs adorned with tiny mittens, a salt and pepper shaker set — all drawn from scenes in one of this year’s new movies. Not to mention the Hallmark Channel-branded sweatshirts and socks and pillows and more, extolling the warm and fuzzy vibes of watching “Countdown to Christmas.”

Those partnerships began slowly a decade ago and have become ever more intertwined.

Consider the “Christmas in Evergreen” series of films: While most Hallmark movie concepts begin in Hollywood, the idea for the “Evergreen” movies originated in Kansas City.

Krista Masilionis, creative director of Hallmark’s brand content studio in Kansas City, took note of the work of Kansas City-based Hallmark artist Geoff Greenleaf, whose quintessentially classic Christmas scenes adorn Hallmark cards that are routinely the company’s top sellers.

“We talked about how his artwork isn’t on any other products and we thought there was a great opportunity there,” Masilionis says. “There’s one scene in particular in one of his illustrations that showed a beautiful town. It was traditional, it was timeless and we thought, what if we called this town Evergreen?”

In 2016, Masilionis worked with Hallmark’s Kansas City-based product writing team to create a summary of their Evergreen ideas to present to Crown Media executives.

“We loved the idea of how it could be a bigger story and the idea of this becoming a town you could revisit every year,” Masilionis says.

The “Christmas in Evergreen” movie series began in 2017, and the fourth installment, “Christmas in Evergreen: Bells are Ringing,” debuts at 7 p.m. Dec. 5. Each year’s movie focuses on different characters in the town, but established characters return annually. And Greenleaf’s inspired look for the town — and a magical red truck that’s ever-present — remains constant in the movies and on products. (Greenleaf’s illustrations appear in the films as transition shots.)

This year Hallmark Channel and sister-network Hallmark Movies & Mysteries will together premiere 40 original Christmas movies, ahead of rival Lifetime, which has 34 new holiday films in 2020. A new movie airs every night this week at 7 on the Hallmark Channel.

And why not? Viewers love Christmas movies. A study by streaming service TubiTV.com released at the end of October found one in three of 2,000 Americans surveyed had already watched a Christmas movie this year, showing the resilience of the genre.

Hallmark Channel’s first new entries for 2020, “Jingle Bell Bride” and “Chateau Christmas,” premiered Oct. 24 and 25 with each new movie drawing 2.7 million viewers, helping Hallmark Channel become the No. 1 cable entertainment network of the week in several Nielsen ratings metrics, including total viewers. The weekend of Oct. 31-Nov. 1, even more viewers tuned in to two more new movies.

This season’s early success follows on 2019’s “Countdown to Christmas,” which made Hallmark Channel the No. 1 cable network among women 25-54 in the fourth quarter last year.

Early collaborations

The Hallmark Channel began in 1998 when Hallmark bought a share of the former Odyssey Network. The formal rebranding came in 2001.

Perhaps the earliest collaborations between the channel and Hallmark’s stores was when the stores began selling DVDs of Hallmark movies.

Hallmark Channel aired its first original Christmas-themed movie 20 years ago, but its “Countdown to Christmas” stunt didn’t begin until 2009 and has expanded ever since.

The first major attempt at network-store integration came in 2011 with the premiere of a stop-motion-animated half-hour children’s special, “Jingle All the Way,” which was inspired by a 2010 interactive stuffed husky pup, Jingle, and his accompanying storybook that were sold in Hallmark stores.

A second half-hour program, “Jingle and Bell’s Christmas Star,” premiered a year later, tied to a plush girl dog, Bell, that was sold in Hallmark stores.

Next came the two-movie “Northpole” series in 2014 and 2015, accompanied by products in Hallmark stores that were featured in the movies, from an elf communicator to a snowflake with glowing LED lights that signals Santa.

Then came the “Christmas in Evergreen” films, offering glimpses of items that can be purchased in Hallmark stores.

“In the first movie there was a magical snow globe that townspeople would make holiday wishes on,” Masilionis says. “And people could purchase that snow globe for themselves.”

This year’s “Evergreen” movie inspired four products that can be purchased in stores or online at hallmark.com. A character in the film crafts goods adorned with tiny knitted mittens. Hallmark stores sell a Santa mug and a Snowman mug with a tiny, knitted mitten tied to their handles.

In the movie, Elliott (Antonio Cayonne) gives Hannah (Rukiya Bernard) ceramic salt and pepper shakers that look like mittens holding snowballs. They’re also for sale. The final scene of the movie includes a glimpse of Hallmark Channel wine (a 2018 cabernet sauvignon and a 2019 sauvignon blanc) on a dining room table. The wine can be purchased where liquor is sold and online at hallmarkchannelwines.com.

Hallmark Channel gear

Over the years, ratings grew and “Countdown to Christmas” became more ingrained in popular culture, including now-you-know-you’ve-made-it “Saturday Night Live” parodies in 2013 and 2017. Hallmark executives took note.

And even though Hallmark Channel’s demographics skew heavily female, the Christmas movies have become such a cultural juggernaut that three guys in South Carolina launched a podcast reviewing the movies, “Deck the Hallmark,” in 2018.

“We’ve been successfully executing this immersive holiday experience and it’s really blown up over the past couple of years into a pop culture phenomenon,” says Danielle Mullin, the Los Angeles-based senior vice president of marketing at Crown Media Family Networks. “There’s this growing fandom around our Hallmark Channel movies and we saw it was something we could amplify so viewers could get more Hallmark Channel in their lives, whether it’s tea or a Monopoly game or apparel in Hallmark Gold Crown stores. It’s a fantastic way for viewers to have a little bit of that Hallmark Channel spirit in every aspect of their lives.”

Hallmark Channel products first appeared with a few items in 2018, expanded in 2019 and have grown again this year to include a tea towel ($13) or pillow ($30) emblazoned with “Dear Santa, Please Bring me All the Hallmark Channel Movies,” “Hallmark Channel Makes Me Merry” novelty socks ($10) and napkins ($6) with the inscription “Eat. Watch Hallmark Channel. Repeat.”

Mullin describes shopping at a grocery store last year while wearing a Hallmark Channel shirt.

“Three different women in three different aisles came up to me and said, ‘I love those movies. Where can I get that shirt?’” she says.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that one of the best-selling products so far this year is the “Hallmark Channel #1 Fan” sweatshirt, according to Lindsey Roy, Hallmark Cards’ Kansas City-based chief marketing officer. She says the products are based on market research, listening to store customers and Hallmark Channel viewers on social media, hearing from store owners and using Hallmark employees’ intuition.

“Obviously our Crown Media team in Hollywood really understands how to tell awesome stories, and we have a team in Kansas City that knows how to make awesome gifts,” Roy says, noting that when the two divisions collaborate they come up with items like a $30 popcorn bowl inscribed with “It’s Hallmark Channel Movie Marathon Time.” “We are a collaborative team because we all live under the same brand and the same brand promise to help people live caring and connected lives full of meaningful moments.”

And lighthearted moments, too, particularly for those playing the $40 Hallmark Channel Monopoly game (a second Christmas movie-only edition is out this year following the success last year of an edition themed to Hallmark Channel movies in all seasons) or a $15 Hallmark movie bingo tear-off pad, which includes boxes for “gift exchange,” “drinking cocoa” and “mistletoe.”

“People were making homegrown bingo cards, so of course we developed an official bingo game,” Mullin says. “The fantastic writers in Kansas City were able to come up with bingo cards with boxes that are a wink and a nod to the wonderful moments in our movies.”

This year’s new “Countdown to Christmas” products for sale outside the Hallmark ecosystem include floral arrangements available at Amazon.com, a Bissinger’s Chocolatiers Advent calendar and a book that takes readers behind the scenes of the holiday movies.

The future

Whatever Hallmark has planned for Christmas 2021, it’s already in development. Masilionis says work on each holiday season’s products begins up to 18 months in advance. Hallmark executives wouldn’t say whether “Christmas in Evergreen” will be extended into a fifth movie in 2021 or if Greenleaf, who retired this year, will continue to provide art.

Hallmark Channel long ago expanded its themed blocks of programming to other seasons (“Spring Fling,” “Summer Nights,” “Fall Harvest”), and additional products will follow. Already in the works: two new wines in February themed to Valentine’s Day and Bissinger’s Chocolates for Mother’s Day. New, non-Christmas Hallmark Channel apparel will be in Hallmark stores next summer.

“We’d love to help you create traditions and more moments with family,” Mullin says, “and it’s definitely possible to expand the product line beyond just the holidays to capture that in all those other seasons.”

Freelance writer Rob Owen: RobOwenTV@gmail.com or on Facebook and Twitter as RobOwenTV.

This story was originally published November 22, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Hallmark Channel may celebrate ‘Christmas in Evergreen,’ but it started in Kansas City."