Walt Disney World is opening a limited-time retail experience to coincide with the debut of “Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True,” the first-ever Christmas movie filmed on property. Here are the latest updates, including the exclusive merchandise that’ll be available at the pop-up shop, premiere date of the film, and more.
As basic background, Walt Disney World and the Hallmark Channel have teamed up on an all-new, original holiday movie called “Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True.” The movie is set to premiere during Hallmark Channel’s 17th annual Countdown to Christmas in 2026, and was shot on location at Walt Disney World in Florida starting around last Thanksgiving through early 2026.
Earlier this week, Hallmark announced a debut date for “Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True.” The exclusive will premiere on Saturday, November 28, 2026 at 8:00pm Eastern on the Hallmark Channel. The film will be available for subscribers to stream on Hallmark+ starting November 29, 2026.
As expected, this release coinciding with Thanksgiving weekend when Hallmark viewership is at its peak makes “Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True” one of the tentpoles for the network’s 17th annual Countdown to Christmas programming. The Hallmark Channel called it “the most magical holiday movie of the season” in making the November 28, 2026 debut date announcement for “Holiday Ever After” on social media.
Ryan Landels is the writer and director of “Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True.” Starring Lacey Chabert, Travis Van Winkle, Richard Kind, Christy Carlson Romano, Bryce Durfee, Taegen Burns, and Asher Alexander, with Patrick Renna in a cameo role, this first-ever Walt Disney World holiday movie is soon-to-be classic Christmas romance.
In “Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True,” Lindsey (Chabert) and her extended family head to Walt Disney World to spend a magical Christmas together. But the dream of a jolly holiday gets dashed when Lindsey discovers her room is next door to Philip (Van Winkle), a disastrous first date she recently had, who’s also there on a family trip.
As Lindsey and Philip’s paths cross throughout their Walt Disney World trip, the frost starts to thaw as they learn they’re not so different from each other after all. Thanks to the magic of Disney, the holiday wish Lindsey made in Cinderella fountain just might turn their rivalry into romance. Maybe. This is Hallmark, so endings are always unpredictable and happiness is never guaranteed.
Hallmark Pop-Up Store at Disney Springs
The other exciting news is that a pop-up shop tied to “Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True” is coming to Walt Disney World. No opening date has been confirmed yet, but the limited-time retail experience (as Hallmark has dubbed it) will be open at Disney Springs.
The location will presumably be one of the vacant storefronts, and will open sometime in October and run through the end of 2026. This is actually a really savvy strategy on Walt Disney World’s part, and I hope we see more of it. Several smaller-scale stores have shuttered in the last year; replacing them with temporary or seasonal offerings is a way to get fans excited and keep locals coming back.
It beats an unintentional revolving door of retailers that probably aren’t good fits or viable given the high rent that Disney charges. This worked well with CrazyShakes, and I’m sure Hallmark will be a huge hit for the holidays.
Darren Abbott, President of Hallmark Media and Chief Brand Officer revealed that as part of the film’s launch, a pop-up Hallmark Store will appear at Disney Springs (h/t LaughingPlace.com). “We’re really creating a 360-degree experience around the content,” Abbott said. In addition to Hallmark’s previously-announced Disney Parks ornament collection, there are original products based on “Holiday Ever After” that will be sold at the shop.
The cross-brand strategy is part of an initiative known as One Hallmark. “What it really means is thinking about all of the commercial levers we have across the enterprise and bringing those together,” added Abbott. In addition to Disney, a similar strategy has been used on its Holiday Touchdown franchise, which is a licensed partnership with the NFL and will feature “A Bears Love Story” this year, as the third film in that series.
“I want our audience, our fans, to always wonder what is Hallmark going to do next, and I want it to be a surprise,” Abbott shared. “And I think the NFL partnership, the Disney partnership are two really good examples of that.” (It’s amusing that the NFL, Hallmark, and Disney are all partnered with one another. Those are some interesting crossover demographics!)
I couldn’t agree more with the Hallmark brand dude. As an avid Disney and Detroit Lions fan who also watches way too many Hallmark movies each Christmas as a guilty pleasure, I hope he delivers the crossover we all want to see: “Holiday Touchdown Ever After: A Lions Love Story & Figment Mystery.”
It’ll be a glorious 3-hour film featuring a salute to all things Disney and Detroit, but mostly how Megatron, Barry Sanders, and Herman Moore time travel to bring back the original Journey Into Imagination with Figment and Dreamfinder, and how much I love that. It’ll have everything you want to see. The Muppets, Cinderella Castle Dream Lights, Disney’s Magical Express, BeaverTails, Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights, the Kiss Goodnight, three ghosts, and a healthy Kerby Joseph.
Moving right along, here’s some of the merchandise that’ll be featured as part of the “Holiday Ever After” product launch:
The “Holiday Ever After” collection features 38 products that include apparel, accessories, home, kitchen, ornaments, and cards. You can find the whole collection with prices and details on hallmark.com.
The movie merchandise will be available at hallmark.com and Hallmark Gold Crown stores starting in October 2026, with the Disney Springs pop-up shop presumably adding a retail option for Walt Disney World guests around that same time.
What’s most interesting about this “Holiday Ever After” collection is that it feels more like Walt Disney World merchandise than it does Hallmark. If this were released as one of the product lines in Disney’s upcoming Christmas collection, I wouldn’t bat an eye–nor would I realize that it’s co-branded with Hallmark for the upcoming movie.
There are a lot of items you’d expect to see from a Disney collection, including collaborations with Spirit Jersey, Loungefly, Corkcicle, Vera Bradley, and other partners.
This is probably a smart move! This stuff is going to sell primarily to Walt Disney World fans, and although there’s undoubtedly tremendous crossover appeal between Hallmark and Disney, it’s best to have the merchandise sell on its own. While some of these items have Hallmark branding, it’s nothing overt. A first-timer visiting Walt Disney World this Christmas could be clueless about the movie, but purchase this because they like the pattern.
I’m not a first-timer, but I appreciate the approach. The mug, for instance, is very tastefully-done. I wouldn’t buy something featuring poster art from the film, but I will purchase that mug. The design is nice, and it’ll be a neat conversation piece in 10 or 20 years.
In case you missed our previous update, last week star Lacey Chabert appeared on Live with Kelly and Mark to talk about the new movie:
“I had a dream come true. I got to go to Disney World to make a movie,” Chabert said during the interview. She revealed that she was at Walt Disney World for a full month of filming; at the beginning, the producers asked her if she wanted to rent an apartment so she could cook and settle in.
“I was like, ‘Hold on, is staying at a Disney property an option? Because I would like to stay at a Disney hotel.’ I stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and it was amazing.” She also shared that she had Mickey Waffles almost every day, and that it was a “pinch-me moment” while she was filming at the parks for weeks on end.
She also went into the parks on her days off, and that she and Richard Kind rode together on their days off. She loved Pirates of the Caribbean, Mad Tea Party, TRON Lightcycle Run, and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Chabert self-describes as being a “huge Disney fan” who visited Disneyland for the first time, followed by Walt Disney World while she was on Party of Five.
Chabert shared that she has a lot of great family memories from the parks, and told her mom when she was a kid that she wanted to work at Walt Disney World someday. Chabert was also able to bring her own daughter to Walt Disney World during filming, and was able to score some ‘cool mom points’ that way.
Earlier this month, Hallmark released the trailer for Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True,” giving fans a first look at the film:
Not many surprises in here for anyone who has been following along with the filming locations. The only ones that stuck out to me were Biergarten at EPCOT (great pick for the film) and Animal Kingdom Lodge, which appears to be home to a quasi-Candlelight Processional.
Wouldn’t be the first time movies or shows shot at Walt Disney World played fast and loose with time and space. We’ll be lucky if there’s nothing that’s actually from Disneyland snuck in there! Otherwise, the trailer is about what you’d expect of a Hallmark movie filmed at Walt Disney World.
Our Commentary
We are really looking forward to “Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True.” We’ve been counting down to this year’s Hallmark Channel Countdown to Christmas since this movie was first announced last November. We’re very excited that the wait is almost over!
Hallmark Channel Christmas movies are our ultimate guilty pleasure during the holiday season. We watch a lot of them–easily two-dozen per Christmas. I’m not even going to pretend it’s against my will. They’re nice to put on in the background.
The ending of every single one is predictable from about the 10-minute mark. There’s almost always a small town character (and setting) in a relationship with a big city character who isn’t right for them, or a big city character rediscovering their roots in a small town. Sometimes there are cats and/or castles. I really like these ones.
My one big hope is that they don’t overproduce “Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True” or lean too hard into the ‘free marketing’ angle.
A bit of Toy Story Land is okay, but I really hope there’s no a 10 minute tangent about going on a search for the missing ingredient in grandma’s famous Christmas cookies, and soliciting the help from the Tiana’s Foods team. That might be a bit much.
Part of the secret sauce of Hallmark Channel movies is that they have this b-movie quality to them. They are cozy, like a warm hug. Part of why many fans have stopped watching the ABC Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade is because it’s whatever the exact opposite of that is. It feels overly-commercial. (A bit ironic since over-commercializing holidays is like Hallmark’s whole thing!)
My hope is that “Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True” threads the needle and ends up becoming a guilty-pleasure cult classic. It doesn’t need to be good-good or so-bad-it’s-good. The movie just needs to have just the right amount of cheesiness, Hallmark sentimentality, and Christmas at Walt Disney World window-dressing.
This generation really needs what mine had back in the day with the Top 10 TV Shows Set at Walt Disney World and Top 10 Walt Disney World TV Specials. It’d be nice if “Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True” becomes a new entry on that second list!
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie set at Walt Disney World? Looking forward to “Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True”? Any predictions about settings or plot points? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
