Hollywood Actress Focuses on ‘Reason for the Season’ This Christmas

Published: December 3, 2025

By Michaela Gordoni

SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH star Melissa Joan Hart plans to scale back Christmas traditions to focus on the reason for the season.

“The step back really comes from the chaos that’s just gotten to the holiday season,” Hart told Fox News. “We start so early, we do so much. We’re asked to do so much.”

“Instagram makes us, I think, feel a pressure to have things look a certain way and be a certain way,” she continued. “And I just want to take that pressure off and just make it about the reason for the season, which for our family is Jesus, you know, and really focus on family.”

Gift-giving is one of her love languages, so she’s excited to put a lot of thought into her gifts this year, too.

“This year, I want to hand out gifts, you know. I really want to give gifts that are meaningful or that I’ve gone, I come back from the store with bags, I wrap them and hand them to people,” instead of just checking it off a list, she said.

For her, having a meaningful Christmas includes considerate gift-giving.

“I really pride myself on finding the perfect gift for people,” she explained.

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Hart loves Christmas, and in previous years, her traditions were baking certain cookies, watching special movies and putting the angel on the tree. Her favorite though, is eating her grandma’s French silk pie — a creamy chocolate delicacy.

“The one thing I always have to have for Thanksgiving and Christmas is a French silk pie that was my grandma’s recipe. Even if you find something called a French silk pie, it won’t be the same thing. It is just heaven on earth,” she told Lifetime.

Hart just made a Christmas movie, A MERRY LITTLE EX-MAS, which she produced and starred in.

“It was just a fantastic cast,” she explained. “It’s a really fun movie. I really am on a mission right now to bring humor back to Christmas movies.”

She pointed out that the best Christmas movies, like ELF and HOME ALONE, are comedies.

“I don’t always love the perfect happy ending but I do think a Christmas movie must have a happy ending, of course,” she added. “But I want to bring the humor back to it and I think this movie is a great place to start.”

A MERRY LITTLE EX-MAS is currently available to stream on Netflix.

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