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Lifetime announces 30 Christmas movies, including its first about LGBTQ romance

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Despite the pandemic, Lifetime still aims to brighten up the holiday season.

The network announced Monday that it will air 30 new Christmas movies, starting this fall. That figure would match last year's record tally of Yuletide cheer.

This year's sleighload of films will feature Jason Priestley, Robin Givens, Amber Steven West (in a film executive produced by Tiffany Haddish), Ali Stroker, Ed Begley, Jr., Cheryl Ladd, Faith Prince, Daniel DiTomasso, and Marco Grazzini to its roster, which already includes Mario Lopez, Melissa Joan Hart, Kelly Rowland, and Betty White. Lifetime also will unveil The Christmas Set Up, the first film built around an LGTBQ romance, in this case, high school friends who reconnect over the holidays. (Last year, the network's Twinkle All the Way featured a same-sex kiss between characters played by Brian Sills and Mark Ghanimé).

In other firsts, Lifetime will bring you its first Yuletide movie centered on a Chinese-American family. Directed by Jennifer Liao and written by Eirene Donohue, A Sugar & Spice Holiday follows a young architect who returns home to Maine for Christmas in the wake of her grandmother's death and winds up entering a gingerbread house competition.

Both films are currently casting.

Lifetime isn't the only network with its eyes on Christmas, of course. Hallmark (with its Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries) recently announced plans for 40 new Yuletide movies.

While you await your TV gifts, revisit the 106 Christmas movies that aired across the networks and streamers in 2019.

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