Hello and welcome to Christmas in July! I figured I would follow Hallmark’s lead and feature a few locations from some great holiday movies!!! First up is a house from one of my personal favorite Christmas movies, Trading Christmas. Based on the book by bestselling author Debbie Macomber, Trading Christmas is one of those movies I can watch over and over again, and every time is still like the first. It’s a story of love, loss, hope, and healing, all against the backdrop of the Christmas holidays. From Hallmark:
“Emily (Faith Ford) misses her daughter Heather (Emma Lahana), who is attending college in Boston. Since her father died, Heather is sensitive to her mom’s dependence on long-standing holiday traditions. This Christmas, Heather has planned a trip to Phoenix with her boyfriend, but tells her mother she is staying on campus to study.After Emily arranges a house-swap with Charles (Tom Cavanagh), an English professor from Boston who wants Washington State’s solitude in order to finish his novel, Emily hops on a flight to Boston to surprise Heather for Christmas. Unaware of the house swap, Emily’s best friend, Faith (Gabrielle Miller) walks in on Charles at Emily’s house and in Boston, Ray, Charles’ brother (Gil Bellows) responds to a 911 call only to find Emily at Charles’ condo. Will Christmas travel calamities lead to cross-country romances? Or have there been one too many surprises already”?
This was brilliantly directed by Michael M. Scott, who has an impressive resume of filmography. Check out his IMDB page here and you will see what I’m talking about. I absolutely loved the casting in this one and thought Tom Cavanagh nailed it in his role as quirky English Professor and Novelist, Charles Johnson. I should add that I just re-watched this movie again this morning (for research purposes) and he was really outstanding the way he got into that role, like all those facial expressions and the delivery of his lines. But what made him so believable was his timing. It was spot on and I loved his character because he made me laugh so much in this one! He was perfectly cast together with Gabrielle Miller, who was just as funny and accomplished playing Faith. I swear, I could have watched these two go back and forth for hours….they were hilarious!!!
Faith Ford and Gil Bellows were fantastic together too, as Emily and Ray, and I loved watching Emily open her heart again after grieving the unexpected loss of her husband. This movie has it all…the casting, the story, and the message of hope…which is why I enjoy seeing it again and again, Every. Single. Year.
The movie was filmed in Vancouver and Fort Langley for the most part. Seasoned Hallmark viewers will recognize the town of Fort Langley as well as the impressive Fort Langley Town Hall, which I wrote about here.
Today, I will focus on two of the Fort Langley locations we saw in the movie, starting with Emily’s house.
As I have mentioned before, I live in Washington State, across the border from Canada and I conduct my research online. I’ve been known to get lost on the internet researching, a half a day passing before I realize it, and have veered so far away from what I began looking for that I’ve forgotten WHAT I was looking for. (totally true story!) I become so engrossed, especially when I’m on Google Street View. It is highly addicting and sometimes I can even feel when I am getting close to a house I’m looking for. (I know, I’m a weirdo!)) I love this hobby of mine and while some may prefer rattling off sports stats and watching playoff’s, I’m very much ok quoting film locations, thank you very much.
Sometime last year, I was on Google Street View searching for something when out of the blue I spotted Emily’s house. (yeah, it’s happened a couple of times!) I immediately recognized her place because I had already been looking for it for a while. It caught my eye as the Victorian home has a pretty specific look and check out at all those wooden details!!! (go on, have a look) The ornate railing around the porch and upstairs balcony, the shaped stacked blocks above each window, the red scalloping on the roof, and those gable top turnings you see at the pitch of the roof…it is really something!!! I swear if it was painted in pastel colors it would look exactly like a doll house!
In Trading Christmas, Emily’s house looks like it is a little elevated on a small hill. Well, they fooled me because that is exactly what I was looking for and was not expecting to see her place on a flat street of houses. And as you can see, there is no hill. But if you use your imagination, you can see how the production crew created a small hill to sled down by adding plenty of real and fake snow and filming at just the right angle. There is a separate little structure on the property, just like in the movie, where we saw Charles working on the re-write of his novel. And if this location looks familiar to you, it is! We’ve scene it before, at the end of Hallmark’s Look’s Like Christmas, starring Dylan Neal and Anne Heche. The blended family can be scene decorating their new house with Christmas decor at the end of the movie. I wrote about another location from Look’s Like Christmas, here.
“Looks Like Christmas”
“Trading Christmas”
At the beginning of this movie, we see Emily coming out of a shop with her rolling cart, loaded with supplies to make homemade gingerbread houses with her daughter. This location escaped me for years….yes years….until now. I finally figured out where it was in Fort Langley and it isn’t a shop at all! (ah, the magic of Hollywood.) The opening scene was shot at the Fort Langley CN Station, a heritage building dating back to 1915. Click here to read more about this historic structure. I hear the CN Station has been used a lot for filming and Riverdale fans may recognize it.
To give you some perspective on where this is located within Fort Langley, the photo below (taken in front of the CN Station) shows the Cedar Cove Chronicle and just behind it is Blessings Restaurant from Morning Show Mysteries. I wrote about these locations here and here.
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What I’m Watching This Weekend:
One of my very favorite Hallmark movies will be on this weekend and I cannot wait! Look for Harvest Moon this Saturday, July 7, 2018. Check local listings for time. I wrote about Porter’s Bistro Coffee & Tea Househere, which was used briefly in Harvest Moon. I never tire of this one!!! It’s in my top-10-all-time favorites and directed by the one and only, PDL. (Peter DeLuise)
Hallmark Movies & Mysteries Channel is airing Christmas in July. I’ve been recording movies all week. Hallmark Channel begins Christmas Keepsake week on July 13. Be sure to check out the schedule as some of your faves are sure to be airing.
My New DVR:
As you know, my husband doesn’t care about film locations, but he is a huge supporter of this website. He sees how much joy it brings me and wants me to have access to what I need to create the best content I can. We have Direct TV and our DVR was full. There was nothing I could get rid of because at any given time, I need to scan through a movie to check something out. (no, Hallmark does not supply me with anything for this blog) Without any prompting from me, hubs began looking into options for this issue, even calling the cable company a time or two. He found out about an external hard drive that is compatible with Direct TV and holds 4 times the capacity as what we had. We ordered this 4TB DVR External Hard Drive from Amazon a few weeks ago and I’ve been recording everything since I lost ALL of my recordings when we made the switch. (short term problem since I’ve already got most of them back!)
I have about 115 movies recorded at this time and we still have 85% storage left! I’ve included alink to an even larger one if you want to go even bigger. I thought I would share this info, in case anyone out there is looking for a solution to their DVR storage problem.
June: Busiest Month To Date
Thank you so much for stopping by today and for your continued support of this website. I had another record-breaking month in June, my busiest month to date. And Saturday, June 23, was the busiest day ever since I launched last September. With an increase in page views every month and email inquiries, it confirms what I already knew; there is a genuine interest in Hallmark film locations and the stories behind these places. Thank you!!!
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