Hallmark’s 2025 Holiday Lineup Welcomes Back Lesbian Leads
‘The Christmas Baby’ marks another step in Hallmark’s growing commitment to telling inclusive holiday stories.
Featured image: Hallmark Channel
Hallmark Channel is continuing its expansion into more inclusive holiday storytelling, and this December it will once again feature a lesbian couple at the center of its Christmas lineup. The Christmas Baby premieres December 21 as part of the network’s Countdown to Christmas 2025 schedule.
The film stars Ali Liebert (Bomb Girls) and Katherine Barrell (Wynonna Earp) as Erin and Kelly, a couple whose lives are upended when a baby is left on their doorstep just before Christmas. According to Hallmark’s synopsis:
“When a baby boy shows up on their doorstep days before Christmas with a note written specially for them, Erin (Liebert) and Kelly (Barrell) must learn how to navigate their new relationship and career dynamics while unexpectedly caring for a newborn.
Related: I Watched Every Lesbian Christmas Movie I Could Find—Here’s What Sleighed and What Didn’t
As the couple spends more time with the baby as a temporary solution until he can be placed permanently or they can find his mother, they begin to realise that they want to adopt him themselves and go about navigating the complicated world of fostering to adopt all while their business is booming at the busiest time of the year, Christmas.”
Liebert celebrated the project online, telling fans they are “gonna love this one” and saying she is “so proud” of the film. Barrell added her excitement, writing, “Mark your calendars, buy hot coco in bulk- we’re going BIG!! Think watch party, think BTS release every Friday from the brilliant, beautiful, kind, incredible @aliliebert and I until the main event! We are SO proud of this momentous movie. (Shhhh- word on the street is that our sound team shed happy tears in the audio mix, so you may want some tissues too!)”
This is not Hallmark’s first holiday story centered on two women in love. In 2023, the network debuted Friends & Family Christmas, starring Liebert as well, which followed Daniella and Amelia as their fake-dating arrangement evolved into something real. At the time, Liebert explained why the project mattered to her, saying she loved that the title was “expanding that vision of what a traditional family can mean.”
That film itself came on the heels of The Holiday Sitter (2022), Hallmark’s first Christmas romance with gay lead characters, starring Jonathan Bennett. Together, these releases mark a steady commitment from the network to reflect a broader range of families and relationships.
Related: Fall Into Sweater Weather With These Pumpkin-Spicy Sapphic Reads
Hallmark’s vice president of programming, Lisa Hamilton Daly, spoke about that commitment in December 2023, saying, “We really want people to be able to see themselves in our movies, and we know that people seeing themselves means that there’s a wider range of people who really are excited when we tell their stories.”
From the looks of it, The Christmas Baby offers a familiar Hallmark mix of snow, romance, and family, while reaffirming that LGBTQ+ love stories belong in the holiday canon.
