Tours to visit Christmas movie locations in US state of Connecticut prove huge hit
Fans of Hallmark’s feel-good and family-friendly TV films are taking tours around locations in Connecticut, home to at least 22 productions
Christmas at Pemberley Manor and Romance at Reindeer Lodge may never make it to Oscar night, but legions of fans still love these sweet-yet-predictable holiday movies – and this season, many are making pilgrimages to where their favourite scenes were filmed.
That is because the US state of Connecticut – the location for at least 22 holiday films by American cable networks such as Hallmark and Lifetime – has been promoting tours of the quaint Christmas-card cities and towns featured in this booming film market. Places where, for example, a busy corporate lawyer can return home for the holidays and cross paths with a plaid-shirt-clad former high school flame who now runs a Christmas tree farm. (Spoiler alert: they live happily ever after.)
“It’s exciting – just to know that something was in a movie and we actually get to see it visually,” said Abby Rumfelt of Morganton, North Carolina, after stepping off a coach in Wethersfield, Connecticut, one of the stops on the holiday film tour.
Rumfelt was among 53 people, mostly women, on a recent week-long “Hallmark Movie Christmas Tour”, organised by Mayfield Tours from Spartanburg, South Carolina. On the bus, fans watched the matching film as they rode from stop to stop.
Whether you love them or loathe them, television Christmas films are a holiday season staple. The romance, the snowy landscapes, the perfectly decorated homes and the familiar stories provide millions of viewers with comfort and joy in December – and even November for some with a looser definition of the holiday season.