Hallmark Channel Is Back With Another Christmas Movie Marathon to Get Us Through Self-Quarantine

Christmas just came (a whole lot) early!

The coronavirus outbreak has all of us craving a bit of magic right now, and Hallmark Channel is more than willing to provide.

Everybody’s favorite dispenser of warm and fuzzies has yet another extra-special Christmas movie marathon lined up, allowing us to relive some holiday cheer and pass the time while we’re all cooped up inside.

The first-round of festivities kicked off on Friday, March 20 at 12 p.m. EST, with Candace Cameron Bure's A Christmas Detour. From there, Hallmark aired 27 original "Countdown to Christmas" holiday films from recent years, which culminated on Sunday, March 22 at 6 p.m. ET with Christmas in Rome starring Lacey Chabert.

And, thanks to the overwhelming response from fans, Hallmark Channel is returning this weekend with its special "We Need a Little Christmas" marathon, Entertainment Tonight reports. Starting noontime on Friday, March 27, the heartwarming entertainment begins again with Christmas in Evergreen: Letters to Santa, starring Jill Wagner and Holly Robinson Peete, and ends with Jingle Around the Clock, starring Brooke Nevin, on Monday, March 30.

In case that's not enough holiday cheer to get you through, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries will be joining in with its own lineup of original Christmas movies beginning that same day at 11 a.m. EST. (Check here for the full schedule.)

While it might seem odd to crave Christmas cheer on the first day of Spring, there’s actually a very good reason we love Hallmark’s holiday movies in trying times—the coronavirus pandemic certainly being one of them. They’re a welcome escape from the depressing 24-hour news cycle.

"I think people can only take so much," Michelle Vicary, the network's executive VP of programming and publicity, told Glamour. "We purposely look to be an escape. We try not to be issues-oriented in terms of creating polarizing conversations, because there are places to get that. We are a place that is a haven from that. We're just a different conversation."

Crown Media's CEO and president, William J. Abbott, has a similar outlook. "The Hallmark brand is all about people connecting," he explained. "The secret, I think, to our success is that we focus on that relentlessly."

And while we’re all practicing social distancing for the foreseeable future, a heartwarming and predictable romance seems like just what we need.