Grab your tissues and get ready to feel all the feelings, because Hallmark Channel’s latest offering might just be its most emotionally raw yet.
With A Season of Promises, the network is delivering a heartfelt departure from its traditional holiday rom-com formula, trading meet-cutes and festive matchmaking for a deeply personal story about two estranged sisters, the father who loves them both, and the complicated journey toward finding their way back to one another.
Premiering Sunday, November 8, as part of Hallmark Channel’s beloved Countdown to Christmas programming, the new film stars Brooke D’Orsay, Ali Liebert and James Denton in a family-centered holiday story that explores what happens when grief, unresolved hurt and years of silence threaten to overshadow the people who matter most.
And according to the cast, it’s precisely that emotional depth that makes this particular Christmas movie so special.
“We love our movie, if we do say so ourselves,” Liebert told Celeb Secrets ahead of the premiere, sharing her excitement for audiences to finally experience the story.
At the heart of A Season of Promises are Heidi (D’Orsay) and Sophie (Liebert), two sisters whose lives couldn’t look more different. Heidi is a driven hockey announcer determined to make her professional dreams a reality, while Sophie is a struggling stand-up comedian balancing her ambitions with a waitressing job. But beneath their contrasting personalities lies a relationship fractured by grief following their mother’s passing.
When their father, Ed (Denton), experiences a health scare, the sisters are suddenly forced back into each other’s lives — putting aside their differences to make sure the man they both love is okay.
And as Ed begins to navigate life alone, Heidi and Sophie decide to take matters into their own hands, attempting to help their father find love again just in time for Christmas. What begins as an effort to bring happiness back into his life ultimately becomes an unexpected opportunity for the sisters to confront their own past and rediscover what family truly means.
For Denton, who returns to Hallmark in the role of Ed, the film’s biggest distinction is exactly what audiences might not expect from a holiday movie.
“It’s a really sweet father-daughters story in which, for a change, the romance is not the centerpiece,” he explained to Celeb Secrets. “The movie’s really about a sort of a family dynamic.”
That distinction is what makes A Season of Promises feel especially meaningful within Countdown to Christmas. While there’s certainly romance woven throughout the story, the emotional heart belongs to the family at its center — three people navigating loss, loneliness and the possibility of healing together.
And bringing that family dynamic to life meant finding the balance between the love Heidi and Sophie still share and the hurt they’ve carried for years. Fortunately, D’Orsay and Liebert didn’t have to look too far for that foundation.
“I adore Ali so much, so we had a base of just love and understanding and friendship,” D’Orsay shared. “So then when you put on any anger or frustration on top of that, I think it still holds the audience ’cause they can feel that there’s a base of love underneath it.”
Denton was particularly excited that the movie retained the emotional confrontation between his on-screen daughters, describing it as “a really fantastic scene” and praising the actresses for bringing such genuine emotion to the screen.
“There’s some real heartbreaking stuff in it, which of course ends well,” he said. “But it’s nice to watch them just go at it as actresses, and feel really, I mean, real tears and real emotion and grief.”
For D’Orsay, that scene proved to be one of the most emotionally demanding experiences of her career. After filming the sisters’ long-awaited confrontation, the actress woke up the following morning with a headache so intense that she initially thought she was getting sick. But the moment she began talking about the scene, the emotions came rushing back.
“I started crying again,” she recalled, realizing just how deeply the experience had stayed with her. “I had such a migraine … And I’m like, ‘Am I getting sick?’”
“It’s like a crying hangover,” Liebert pointed out, with D’Orsay agreeing: “That’s exactly what it was. A crying hangover.”
For Liebert, portraying Sophie meant exploring a different kind of emotional vulnerability: the instinct to hide pain behind humor.
“I think human beings deal with grief and anger in all sorts of ways,” she explained, noting that Sophie’s tendency to use comedy as a defense mechanism felt particularly relatable. “It’s a very convenient and hilarious … tactic for many folks, so showing that vulnerability behind that armor was a nice journey for me to take.”
Of course, no Countdown to Christmas movie would be complete without a little festive fun, and Ed’s own journey toward finding love provides some particularly memorable moments along the way. One scene Denton won’t soon forget involves a makeover montage in which Ed receives the full treatment — from a haircut and shave to a manicure and pedicure — as his daughters attempt to prepare him for the dating world.
The catch? Despite what viewers will see on screen, Denton revealed that his first-ever on-camera pedicure wasn’t quite the luxurious experience it appeared to be.
“They just soaked my feet and pretended,” he joked, admitting that he was actually hoping to enjoy the real thing.
But beneath the laughs, A Season of Promises is ultimately a reminder that the holidays have a way of bringing us back to what matters most. Through Ed’s journey toward finding companionship and Heidi and Sophie’s unexpected journey toward reconciliation, the film makes room for the messy, meaningful moments that make family worth fighting for.
And while Christmas may not magically erase years of hurt, Hallmark’s latest Countdown to Christmas offering is a poignant reminder that the season’s greatest promise isn’t necessarily finding romance — it’s finding our way home to one another.
A Season of Promises premieres TONIGHT, Sunday, November 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel and streams the following day on Hallmark+. For more one the film, make sure to watch our full interview with Brooke, Ali and James below — and don’t forget to let us know if you’re excited to watch by either leaving a reaction at the bottom of the post or by sliding into our DMs on Instagram at @celebsecrets.
For more coverage on Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas, click here.
