“The Christmas Card,” the 2006 Hallmark Channel movie that was filmed in Nevada City, is currently making its annual Christmas season appearance.
The movie is much like home movies: Interesting if you know the people or the locale, but very forgettable otherwise. Certainly, it did little for the actors in this epic.
The only name in the cast was Ed Asner, who did enough to collect his check and move on to his next gig. The rest of the cast faded into the background, with the possible exception of Ben Weber (he played the jilted fiancé).
He subsequently appeared in two forgettable movies (“Look” and “Losing Control”), but did take a star turn as one of the cavemen in the old Geico commercials and as an uncomfortable job applicant in a Gas-X commercial. He probably earned more in residuals from those commercials than he did from “The Christmas Card.”
As for Joyce Hall, the founder of Hallmark Cards, the creator of one of TV’s notable achievements, “The Hallmark Hall of Fame,” and the man for whom the Hallmark Channel is named? He’s probably still turning in his grave.