How the Hallmark Channel Became a Christmas-Movie Machine

The sure-fire ingredients for a successful holiday show: quaint small town, flirtatious tree decorating and, most importantly, snow

‘Switched for Christmas” has all the ingredients for a Hallmark Channel holiday movie. A small-town Christmas festival. Flirtation and decorating. Snowy epiphanies about what really matters. And Candace Cameron Bure, a Hallmark audience favorite who has starred in six Christmas movies for the network. This season the network doubled the actor’s presence: Ms. Bure plays identical twins who temporarily trade lives and stumble into romance.

The commitment to Christmas is total in the TV world of Hallmark, with wall-to-wall...