In 2021, Days of Our Lives was still on NBC, and Peacock had only been around for a little over a year. The streaming platform, however, already knew the soapâs value. The first season of Beyond Salem had already dropped. The DAYS spinoff was a limited series featuring current and former DAYS cast dealing with worldly adventures outside Salem. A Very Salem Christmas debuted a few months later, and the standalone movie was a wonderful gift.
The Script Was Flipped
A Very Salem Christmas melded the feel-good vibe of Hallmark movies with the more sinful and campy elements that can make daytime television so fun. It all started with Will (Chandler Massey) and Sonny (Zach Tinker), who lived in Arizona. Will had to deliver a miracle while facing a seemingly impossible deadline. He had to write a complete movie script in less than two hours. Sonny wouldnât let his husband give up, so they got to work. This movie was their âbrainchild.â
What was great was that the Christmas tale played upon the showâs history while putting a new spin on characters fans knew and loved. For instance, John (the late Drake Hogestyn) and Marlena (Deidre Hall) werenât together. Instead, he was in a bad marriage with Kristen DiMera (Eileen Davidson). Meanwhile, Gabi (then-Camila Banus) had a huge crush on Brady (Eric Martsolf) and overlooked her best pal, Nick (Blake Berris). Meanwhile, Brady had his heart set on Kristen, who was married to his dad.
READ THIS: Chandler Massey and Zach Tinker previewed A Very Salem Christmas.
Besties Allieâs (Lindsay Arnold) and Chanelâs (Raven Bowens) love lives were flipped upside down. Chanel dated Allieâs crush, Tripp (Lucas Adams), while Allieâs twin, Johnny (Carson Boatman), was totally into Chanel, which is how it should always be.
Plus, the holiday TV movie featured the return of Alison Sweeney. After all, she was (and is) the Queen of Hallmark. Why not bring her back for A Very Salem Christmas? Only this version of Sami Brady was decidedly softer and sweeter, while Nicoleâs (Arianne Zucker) shallow and greedy side was amped up times a thousand.
The two rivals went head-to-head again as it revisited an old storylineâSydneyâs parentage. Sami would ultimately discover that Sydney was her daughter, and Nicole kept the kid away from her true mother for years.
Villains Are People, Too
There were nods to classic holiday movies like Love Actually. There was an abundance of shirtless men, as DAYS is wont to do. But there was sweetness, too, and on the other end, there were the villains. Paulina (JackÊe Harry) attempted to disrupt small-town Salem with her evil Priceline empire. Materialistic Nicole ended up cold and alone.
However, happy endings were plenty. Sami, EJ (Dan Feuerriegel), and Sydney ended up together. And so did John and Marlena, Gabi and Nick, Chanel and Johnny, and Allie and Tripp. Even though Kristen was as shady as ever, even she didnât go home empty-handed. She and Brady got together. Paulina had a warmhearted ending, and so did Nicole.
Just when you think she was going to slink away to lick her wounds, what looked like an unhoused person sleeping on the bench in front of The Brady Pub handed her a tissue. And it was Eric Brady! Back in 2021, this cameo signaled Greg Vaughanâs return to DAYS. The movie had heart, soul, and plenty of soapy moments (Sami slapped Nicole more than once). It even had Xander (Paul Telfer) in glasses and a Christmas tree in the DAYS hourglass.
Ron Carlivati wrote and developed the Ryan Quan story, which was highly entertaining and a perfect way to count down to Christmas. Unfortunately, it was a one-off. Ten months later, DAYS left NBC and moved to its exclusive home on Peacock.
However, It was such a fun experiment that we had high hopes that the show would premiere a new holiday movie every December. Each subsequent sequel would feature a different blend of cast members and new twists on characters. It could have been a great tradition.
