{"id":417605,"date":"2026-10-03T09:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T09:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/417605\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T09:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T09:48:12","slug":"hallmarks-next-christmas-movie-may-be-filmed-in-this-central-florida-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/417605\/","title":{"rendered":"Hallmark\u2019s next Christmas movie may be filmed in this Central Florida city"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Results are being tallied for the Merriest Christmas Town Contest<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"\"  loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"async\" role=\"presentation\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/MEVDANSQBZCUXGPWG4QDSY3RMA.png\"\/>Photo by Chad Madden on Unsplash (Unsplash)<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Winter Garden is Florida\u2019s only representative among the 25 finalists in <a href=\"https:\/\/merriestchristmastownscontest.hallmarkchannel.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/merriestchristmastownscontest.hallmarkchannel.com\/\">Hallmark Channel\u2019s 2026 Merriest Christmas Town Contest<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">The Central Florida city was recognized for its historic downtown, holiday celebrations, sparkling lights and community traditions. Hallmark described downtown Winter Garden as feeling like a \u201creal-life Christmas village\u201d during the holiday season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">The winner will be selected after public voting and judging based on community spirit, holiday traditions, charm and goodwill. Voting officially closed on Sept. 4, with one vote allowed per day for eligible voters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Now, the results are being tallied, and Hallmark\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/merriestchristmastownscontest.hallmarkchannel.com\/Hallmark_Christmas_Towns_Contest_Official_Rules.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/merriestchristmastownscontest.hallmarkchannel.com\/Hallmark_Christmas_Towns_Contest_Official_Rules.pdf\">official rules<\/a> state they will be revealed on Oct. 31.<\/p>\n<p>Top 25 finalist towns<\/p>\n<p>Ashland, Oregon<\/p>\n<p>Bemidji, Minnesota<\/p>\n<p>Berlin, Maryland<\/p>\n<p>Boerne, Texas<\/p>\n<p>Cape May, New Jersey<\/p>\n<p>Carlinville, Illinois<\/p>\n<p>Carolina Beach, North Carolina<\/p>\n<p>Chatham, Massachusetts<\/p>\n<p>Collierville, Tennessee<\/p>\n<p>Conway, South Carolina<\/p>\n<p>Corning, New York<\/p>\n<p>Cullman, Alabama<\/p>\n<p>Eureka Springs, Arkansas<\/p>\n<p>Hanover, Pennsylvania<\/p>\n<p>Leavenworth, Washington<\/p>\n<p>Lewisburg, West Virginia<\/p>\n<p>Marlborough, Connecticut<\/p>\n<p>Neenah, Wisconsin<\/p>\n<p>North Conway, New Hampshire<\/p>\n<p>Papillion, Nebraska<\/p>\n<p>Parkville, Missouri<\/p>\n<p>Placerville, California<\/p>\n<p>Portsmouth, Ohio<\/p>\n<p>Winter Garden, Florida<\/p>\n<p>Versailles, Kentucky<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">The winning town will also receive the opportunity to serve as a filming location for a Hallmark movie.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf ilkOIf copyright\">Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p>About the AuthorAnthony Talcott headshot<img alt=\"\"  loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" role=\"presentation\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791020892_684_f419bf27-87f9-491c-833f-62836dad10d2.png\"\/><a class=\"sc-bmzYkS fERtCt\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clickorlando.com\/team\/MD8EZ7SZ4M3DA2IC1LP1S3T9LX\/\" title=\"View Anthony Talcott&#039;s full profile\" itemprop=\"url\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anthony Talcott<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf ctDavV cigBRW\">Anthony, a graduate of the University of Florida, joined ClickOrlando.com in April 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Results are being tallied for the Merriest Christmas Town Contest Photo by Chad Madden on Unsplash (Unsplash) ORLANDO,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1191,104,6919,28,30,29,785,1335,4567],"class_list":["post-417605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-christmas","tag-entertainment","tag-features","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-ranked","tag-orange-county","tag-winter-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}