Jonathan Bennett has become one of fans’ favorite Hallmark hunks over the years, and with the rebranding of its streaming service Hallmark+, he’s continued to make his mark in an even bigger way. The 2025 Hallmark schedule will most likely feature more from the Mean Girls actor, but it will admittedly be hard to top his experience in 2024. Bennett starred in one movie for the streamer this Christmas, Season’s Greetings from Cherry Lane, and I absolutely love the personal connection it had to his husband.
While I typically try not to think too hard while enjoying Hallmark’s holiday magic, Jonathan Bennett’s 2023 offering Christmas on Cherry Lane was a twisty tale of three families who all ended up being connected to one another in the end. That format was continued in a sequel for Hallmark+ a year later, and Bennett explained to People what made it “perfect”:
We got to do something super special [in 2024], which is, in my Hallmark Christmas movie that came out, Season's Greetings from Cherry Lane, we actually got to use my husband's Christmas song as the song of the movie.
Season’s Greetings from Cherry Lane continues the story of Mike (Jonathan Bennett) and his husband Zian (Vincent Rodriguez III) after the adoption of their daughter, but in a truly special move, Bennett’s real-life husband Jaymes Vaughan was the one singing during his character’s big moment. It was very meaningful for the actor, who continued:
There was that moment when you are watching your Hallmark movie that you're starring in, and then your husband's voice comes in as the soundtrack. I just thought it was such a neat moment, and it made me want to have more moments like that where we kind of intertwine our art together. There's literally no more perfect Hallmark moment than your husband's song playing during the emotional part of your Hallmark movie.
It certainly seems like that experience made being covered in tinsel for half the year worth it! Jonathan Bennett truly deserved to have his own magical Hallmark moment like that, in my opinion, given how he’s helped the network increase its inclusivity over the years and even starred in its first movie to feature gay leads — The Holiday Sitter — in 2022.
In 2024 he continued to break down LGBTQ+ stereotypes in The Groomsmen trilogy, and while I’m really looking forward to what else we might get from this Wedding Veil-esque trio of movies, it will probably be hard to top the special moment Jonathan Bennett got to have with his husband from the past year.
Can anything coming up in 2025 do better? I actually think a Mean Girls holiday movie reunion with Jonathan Bennett, Lacey Chabert and Lindsay Lohan could top that, at least in the eyes of fans of the iconic teen movie. It was one of the best movies of the 2000s after all. Stay tuned!
