By Elizabeth Bobr 

Every December, many cable networks broadcast marathons of Christmas movies. Hallmark and Lifetime, the two most known networks for holiday movies, air romantic comedies year round but closer to the holidays, the movies become Christmas-themed.

Hallmark does a countdown until Christmas for 12 days airing Christmas rom coms all day and all night.  Every night, the channel airs a romantic movie with a break in between of sneak peeks of famous celebrities’ Christmas traditions. There are special appearances everyday featuring cast members from When Calls the Heart, a Hallmark original show, who share their memories from their own family holiday celebrations. “I prefer Hallmark over Lifetime because Hallmark movies are cute and I don’t really watch Lifetime,” said sophomore Gabi Ndakwah

All of this holiday fun started on December 13 and will go on until December 25. Some of the movies that will be shown are: Sleigh Bells Ring, with Erin Cahill and David Alpay; A Nutcracker Christmas, with famous teen dancer Sophia Lucia; Looks Like Christmas, with Anne Heche and Dylan Neal; and My Christmas Love. “I’m so excited to watch ‘A Nutcracker Christmas’ because I love Sophia Lucia so much,” said sophomore Molly Chieca.

Lifetime began airing their holiday movie marathon on November 25 with movies like The Santa Con, Home by Christmas and All I Want For Christmas. A new Lifetime original movie premiered December 10 called A Christmas Wedding Date starring Marla Sokoloff, Chris Carmack, and George Wendt. On December 8, another new Lifetime original movie called On Strike For Christmas, with Daphne Zuniga and David Sutcliffe aired. “I love lifetime holiday movies because of all the juicy drama,” said sophomore Jenna Dabish.

According to the numbers, Hallmark is the channel of choice among network cable. On Thanksgiving, one of their original movies reached nearly five million viewers while Lifetime original movies only reach about 3.6 million viewers. This could be due to the fact that, most adults in their 30s-40s prefer Hallmark because of its more real content and less drama than lifetime.

Hallmark and Lifetime have all of the information on their website including schedules of all the movies being aired. Holidays are not the same without Hallmark and Lifetime airing their holiday movies.