Candace Cameron Bure & Danica McKellar Lead Great American Family's Yuletide Programming

Other Christian actresses will also join them in the network's holiday movie lineup.

Danica McKellar appears in a scene from "The Winter Palace," her first movie for Great American Family channel from earlier this year. Image: GAC Family.

Having already lured Candace Cameron Bure and Danica McKellar away from the Hallmark Channel, Great American Family is ramping up the competition with that outfit at Christmas, planning to release 18 new made-for-TV movies. They are part of the network's Great American Christmas programming campaign, which kicks off later this month.

Candace Cameron Bure stars in "A Christmas...Present" as part of Great American Family channel's holiday programming this year. Image: Candace Cameron Bure/Instagram.

As Christian Film Blog has previously reported, Great American Family is headed by Bill Abbott, who launched the network in September, 2021, after leaving his CEO post at Hallmark Channel's parent company the previous year. He has since brought over a host of on-camera talent from his previous employer - in addition to Cameron Bure and McKellar - and has stated that he wants the new network to be "relentlessly family-friendly." It will also, evidently, have some overt Christian storylines, as in the case with A Christmas...Present, Cameron Bure's movie, which promises in a synopsis to feature "the reason for the season."

The Great American Christmas programming slate kicks off on Friday, October 21st, and will feature new movies every weekend and run Christmas fare 24-7 through the end of the year. A Christmas...Present airs on Sunday, November 27th at 8:00 PM ET, and McKellar's movie, Christmas at the Drive-In, runs a couple days earlier: Friday, November 25th at 8:00 PM ET.

Jill Wagner and Jen Lilley are two other well-known Christian actresses - and Hallmark Channel alumnae - among the headliners at Great American Family. Wagner stars in A Merry Christmas Wish on Saturday, November 8th at 8:00 PM ET, and Lilley leads the way in B & B Merry, which airs Sunday, December 4th at 8:00 PM ET. You can find the entire programming schedule for Great American Christmas via this link to the channel's website.