Brandon Gray - Ill Be Home for Christmas Movies: The Deck the Hallmark Podcast’s Guide to Your Holiday TV Obsession

I t was a balmy and muggy SaturdayJuly 7, 2018. I was in Florida with my family for the summer and, well, I think its only fair to start this foreword by giving you all the facts.

My father-in-law, Max, had just passed away that April, and it was the first death in the family that my three boys and my wife had lived through. We were grieving. Hard.

It was also the summer my mother-in-law thought that she had lost her wedding ring down the toilet. I made sure the ring wasnt stuck in the porcelain bowl, and I hired a man with a camera to follow the pipes all the way to the septic tank. Then I hired another man to drain the tank, only to find out that he couldnt accomplish the task because dirt had found its way into the mess through a hole a tree root had made in the lid. All that to say, I volunteered to search for her ring by emptying out the septic tank, with a shovel, by hand. A pretty bleak summer indeed.

Until that hot July night, when I opened up my DMs on Instagram and found a message from a perfect stranger, a guy named Brandon Gray.

Brandon and his two friends Dan and Panda were starting a new podcast, and the very first movie they reviewed was Rocky Mountain Christmas. RMC was my second Hallmark holiday movie, and it happened to do very well with the viewing audience, so I was curious what comments these guys would make about this little gem. More like dubious.

Three guys reviewing Hallmark Christmas movies? What. The. Heck. And the name, Deck the Hallmark? What was that supposed to mean? Like, punch Hallmark in the face? What was this podcast going to be?

Brandon asked me, over DM, if Id listen to their pilot episode, and if I liked it, would I be their first-ever guest on the show? Well, amid suffocating grief, overwhelming heat, and the back-breaking work of shoveling out human waste by hand in a hazmat suit, I listened to their pilot episode late that night while I lay in bed, expecting to be mocked for trying to make a living as an actor.

Instead, I was brought to tears. Tears of laughter flooded my face, and the joy and revelry these three men expressed while talking about the TV movie Id made lifted my spirits in a way Id never expected. They had done it. They had brought a male perspective to the female-driven Hallmark movie cultural juggernaut, and it was brilliant. Brandon loves the movies. Panda likes them. Dan despises them. Their podcast is biting, irreverent, hilarious, full of heart, and poignant. Literally, all the things youd want when listening to a podcast about a Christmas movie.

Ive said it before: every generation has a voice. If Christmas movies are the artistic expression of our generationwhich one could argue that theyve becomeBrandon, Dan, and Panda are the voices of that generation. Uniting us by balancing out the feels with humor and levity, they allow us to float into the Hallmark bubble while providing an anchor to reality. At the same time, they offer an entirely different way to escape the sadness and heat and drudgery of our day-to-day lives, by living the example of true friendship and teaching us how to laugh at all the things life has to offereven the unthinkable work of shoveling out a septic tankwith levity and heart.

I, for one, am a fan. I am also, now, a friend. I hope you enjoy the book you are about to read. I promise it will lift your spirits and make you laugh. And friends, I think we can all use a good laugh.

Kristoffer Polaha

August 18, 2020, London, UK

Kristoffer Polaha in Rocky Mountain Christmas

Kristoffer Polaha is an actor whose credits include Jurassic World 3 and Wonder Woman 1984. More relevant to our purposes here, he is a leading Hallmark hunk, whose many films for the network include Double Holiday, Hearts of Christmas, Rocky Mountain Christmas, and Small Town Christmas, all of which are reviewed in this book. Speaking of books, he is the coauthor (with Anna Gomez) of Moments Like This. Let the record show that Mr. Polaha is such a stand-up guy that he is still speaking to all of us. Even Dan.