Chicago — And The Bears — Star In Hallmark’s Latest ‘Holiday Touchdown’ Love Story

CHICAGO — It’s too early to say whether the Chicago Bears will be dominant this season, but Hallmark appears to have a winner in “Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story” — set and filmed in Chicago with cameos from some Bears players to boot.

A few years ago, the company realized that 79 percent of Hallmark Channel viewers also watched NFL games while its annual Countdown to Christmas string of movies was on the air, according to Nielsen ratings. Of those viewers, 59 percent were female and 41 percent were male.

That led Hallmark to produce an annual “Holiday Touchdown” movie connected to an NFL team.

This year, it’s the Bears’ turn. “Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story,” is the third in Hallmark’s “Holiday Touchdown” series, following the Kansas City Chiefs in 2024 and the Buffalo Bills in 2025. It debuts Saturday on the Hallmark Channel.

In “A Bears Love Story,” Lyndsy Fonseca plays Avery, a New York reporter in Chicago visiting family. She gets pitched a local story about beloved octogenarian Darlene (Marsha Mason) who is about to attend her 500th Chicago Bears game.

Avery, of course, becomes very involved in Darlene’s life, as well as the life of Darlene’s handsome Chicago firefighter grandson Matt (Robert Buckley). If you’ve ever watched a Hallmark movie, you know how this all turns out.

The Chicago-based film was actually shot here, not in Toronto, resulting in excellent scenes at Soldier Field, on the Riverwalk and at the Christkindlmarket Downtown. The two-flats where some of the characters live were shot in Logan Square. And the pub where Avery’s parents work is the iconic Irish Nobleman Pub, 1367 W. Erie St., in West Town, not a trumped-up fake establishment.

The Bears were selected because “to find strong team matches, we try to identify teams with fan bases as strong as ours and with values we share at Hallmark,” a company spokesperson said.

Producer Andrew Gernhard has worked on a multitude of Hallmark holiday movies and said he was excited when the company approached him with “A Bears Love Story.”

“I knew it’d be an unbelievable setting,” he said. “Just before the movie started, I was searching online saying, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s so many places to shoot this thing that would be visually stunning.’”

The opening scene takes place not just at Soldier Field, but Soldier Field in 1971 — the year the Bears moved their home games from Wrigley Field to Soldier Field. Finding extras for the crowd scenes was easy, Gernhard said.

“That’s one thing I figured out about these football movies is the fans are there to support. Whether you’re Bills fans or Bears fans or Chiefs fans, they’re always jumping in to get in there, so like getting the extras was not a problem at all.

“We had to go through, you know, the time difference. We tried to get people with similar hairstyles and what we needed, so we didn’t have to do too much trimming or anything like that. But yeah, it was fun to see the different years.”

“Holiday Touchdown” features not just Bears fans, but also some players, from newer stars like Colston Loveland and Cole Kmet to legends like Charles “Peanut” Tillman and Mike Singletary. (Some of the Bears are better actors than others, unsurprisingly; Loveland is a natural.)

“Every one of these ‘Holiday Touchdowns,’ you know, they try and get the coach, they try and get Bears players, or whatever football team you’re doing,” said Gernhard. “And it’s a matter of who’s around, because we’re usually shooting out of season, but we did get a great lineup.

“It’s always great to get the legends like Singletary, and we got some of the hotshots, the new ones, which were really great. And even Iceman [quarterback Caleb Williams] is there at the end” in a video congratulating Darlene on the jumbotron.

Non-famous Chicagoans were just as vital to the shoot, as the creators leaned on the local crew to fill them in on all things Chicago, Gernhard said.

“It helped us really getting in with the community because our crew was Chicago, and they were always willing to help us with how to pronounce something or what we should actually eat or get or what they’re wearing,” he said.

Chicagoans will identify a lot of local Easter eggs, like Matt buying Avery her first shot of Malört and the Italian beef served front and center at a family dinner. The beers served at the pub look a lot like Chicago favorite Old Style. And of course, Avery turns out to be a natural at cornhole, just in time for her stepfather’s big holiday bags tournament.

In fact, one of the nicest things about “Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story” is that there isn’t any trumped-up drama or misunderstanding so formulaic in these types of movies. There’s a lot of beauteous Chicago on display, strong family ties, a diverse cast and a holiday-appropriate theme of compassion and generosity.

The Bears’ charity arm Bears Care is highlighted, and Darlene is such a beloved character because she is constantly caring for other people, even running late to that famed 500th game to help out a friend. (Sports fans in the Block Club office pointed out that 500 Bears games would be a tough benchmark to reach, but the movie creators stress that Darlene and her husband attended many away games as well as playoffs to reach that total.)

So while football and Hallmark may seem to be an odd pairing at first, it all comes together nicely in “A Bears Love Story,” especially for Chicagoans.

“I feel like Hallmark definitely matched those two things perfectly because a lot of times, husband and wives sit down and watch football, and they sit down and watch Hallmark movies, and families can watch these too. And I think just combining them is really nice,” Gernhard said.

Hallmark’s annual Countdown to Christmas movie extravaganza kicks off Friday. “Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story” debuts 7 p.m. Saturday and will be available for viewing the next day on Hallmark +.

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