One Christmas Eve shows the good in a bad day on Hallmark Channel!

Besides the massive amount of Christmas movies in their Countdown to Christmas celebration, Hallmark Channel has found a way to squeeze in some extra Christmas movies! One Christmas Eve caught my eye not because it is a Christmas-themed Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day with a dog thrown in, but because the love interest is an Asian guy! I can count the amount of films with an Asian guy and white lady without having to take off my socks, so kudos to Hallmark Channel for this unexpected surprise!

In fact, the film features a very multi-ethnic cast, as newly divorced mom Nell has a series of adventures that nets her a bunch of extra people as a surrogate family just in time for the holidays. And also a Beagle dog, because we can’t have a Christmas movie on Hallmark without either an angel or a dog.

Nell’s a newly‐single mom who wants this Christmas to be extra‐special for her two kids (played by Once Upon a Time’s Ali Skovbye and Contagion’s Griffin Kane). It turns out to be special – but not the way Nell had in mind! This Christmas Eve, everything that can go wrong does go wrong. The mayhem starts when Cesar (The Glade’s Carlos Gomez) attempts to leave an abandoned beagle on Nell’s front porch. Cesar trips and falls. Nell has to take him to the hospital, where Kevin Daniels (Sirens) is a security guard and Brian Tee (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift) a dreamy doc.

In no particular order, their car is towed, Nell’s son and the beagle disappear down a hole in a construction zone, a nasty nurse harasses them all. Later – to add insult to injury – they’re car‐jacked. And they’re all in a police station when it goes up in flames.

“Everything goes wrong, really wrong,” says Anne Heche, interviewed on the set of One Christmas Eve. “[But] Nell discovers a great deal of strength within herself, strength she didn’t know she possessed. And the family bond is cemented, and the family itself really grows, thanks in a funny way to all the mayhem.”

As there are so many divorces in this country, there is a ready-made audience, and this looks like it could be a fun time.

One Christmas Eve is directed by Jay Russell (My Dog Skip) and written by Holly Goldberg Sloan (Heidi 4 Paws and The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course!) It stars Anne Heche as Nell, Kevin Daniels as Reggie, Carlos Gomez as Cesar, Brian Tee as Dr. Chen, Ali Skovbye as Emma, and Griffin Kane as Alden.

One Christmas Eve premieres Sunday, November 30th on Hallmark Channel!

Photo via Hallmark Channel Press/Erik Heinila