Hallmark is bringing back its Christmas movie marathon to fill your social-distancing weekends

Update, March 26th, 2020 11:04 a.m. ET: This post has been updated from its original version to reflect the latest Hallmark Christmas movie schedule.

Christmas is happening in March this year. The coronavirus outbreak has all of us craving a bit of magic right now, and Hallmark Channel is more than willing to provide. Last week, Entertainment Tonight revealed that everybody’s favorite dispenser of warm and fuzzies had an extra-special Christmas movie marathon weekend lined up, allowing us to relive some holiday cheer and pass the time while we’re all cooped up inside. And now, the channel is returning with round two of its special “We Need a Little Christmas” marathon this weekend.

According to ET, This weekend’s festivities kick off on Friday, March 27th at 12 p.m. Eastern, with Christmas in Evergreen: Letters to Santa and come to a close with Jingle Around the Clock on Monday, March 30th. Even more reason for celebration, the sister network Hallmark Movies & Mysteries will air its own original Christmas movies also starting on Friday. (Check here for both networks’ weekend lineup.)

Don’t own a TV or someone else is simply hogging it? No worries—the Hallmark Movie Streaming Service offers a free 30-day trial for new users, so you don’t have to miss out on the early Christmas cheer.

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.

This post was originally published on March 19th, 2020.

This story originally appeared on SouthernLiving.com by Meghan Overdeep.