Hallmark’s “Friends and Family Christmas” is the holiday romance sapphics deserve

As a perennial romantic girl, I love the Hallmark Channel’s love of a cheesy romance and their Christmas movies are the best: they inject the holiday spirit into my veins and completely No need for critical thinking. That’s what I want to do during the holidays. There are no thoughts, just vibes.

Unfortunately, we’ve been largely absent from the Hallmark holiday romance conversation. Every year, straight people get dozens of movies in which ordinary-looking women in fancy coats go to small towns to fall in love with grumpy lumberjacks. And even though I love it, every year I can’t help but think “when will it be my turn?” This year, Hallmark finally gave us their first lesbian Christmas romance, Friends & Family Christmas. It’s everything I love about the genre, and there’s no bearded man in a sweatshirt trying to kiss anyone under the mistletoe.

When Happiest Season was announced, I was so excited that we were finally going on a romantic getaway. And I love that movie. But it wasn’t really the “light Christmas romantic comedy” I was expecting. Not every lesbian movie has to have its main conflict revolve around coming out or shutting down! Why can’t they, they have to fight against evil developers who want to buy the Harper family’s house and turn it into an Airbnb?

A Friends & Family Christmas is everything anyone who wanted a fun, easygoing Christmas romantic comedy could ask for. The stakes are low, lots of glitter and two openly gay actresses in the romantic leads.
Ali Liebert (Bomb Girls) plays Amelia, a corporate lawyer on the fast track to taking over her father’s law firm, and Humberly Gonzalez (Utopia Falls, Ginny & Georgia) plays Dani, a budding photographer. Find your next source of inspiration. Amelia and Dani’s dads were college roommates, and when Amelia still couldn’t get over her ex nearly a year after their breakup, the dad intervened and invited their daughter to meet. After a questionable coffee date (Amelia drinks plain black coffee like a monster, while Dani prefers peppermint hot chocolate), Amelia lies to her dad and tells him that they got along well and planned to meet again.

With this movie, you get two classic romantic trends in one: Fake Dating and High Power Career Type meets Carefree Artist. Combining those two together is holiday movie gold, and it works very well in this one. They don’t rely too much on metaphors to do the heavy lifting of the story, which is actually quite refreshing! If anything, I’d say they should have stuck with the career gimmick, because the fake dating scheme kind of wears off pretty quickly. Amelia is immediately taken by Dani, and she quickly feels less fake as a result. Dani was still too preoccupied with everything that was going on to realize that Amelia truly loved her until the very end.

The chemistry between Liebert and Gonzalez is one of the best things about Friends & Family Christmas. So often with Hallmark Christmas movies, the main characters feel like they’re not even in the same room most of the time, let alone people who are supposed to be in love. But from the moment Dani and Amelia met, you could believe they were in love before Santa left the North Pole. There’s a scene where they dance together at a party, and even though the dance is brief, the chemistry is palpable. Ali Liebert could teach a class on how to convey a million emotions with your eyes. And Humberly Gonzalez is sweeter than hot chocolate with double the mint flavor.