Lastly, BET tapped into the skills of Director Terri J. Vaughn to release three Holiday Movie Specials. The first one is “Hip Hop Holiday” starring Ta’Rhonda Jones as ‘Leesa Jay’ a larger than life Hip Hop Diva that rekindles an old friendship over Christmas. Joining the cast are Wendy Raquel Robinson who rejoins Terri J. Vaughn since their days on “The Steve Harvey Show” and Andre Fuller as ‘Caleb’. Mrs. Vaughn’s second Christmas Movie for BET is “Christmas Belles” starring Raven Goodwin as ‘Delila’, DomiNque Perry as ‘Porsha’ and Omar Gooding as ‘Donovan’. Delila and Porsha are life-long friends living their life like its’ golden. They have everything they need; except a man! Well, a good one in Porsha’s case, and Porsha’s mother doesn’t spare reminding both of them that their biological clock is a ticking time bomb. In fact, Porsha and Delila’s friends do a pretty good job of reminding them as well. Now that you think about it, so does the whole community in which they live. You know it is bad when the two best friends consider being gay; and being with each other as Girlfriend and Girlfriend? Okay, that thought lasted 60 seconds. However, these two besties turn from best of buds to friendly rivals when Pastor Michael McKnight (Mark Taylor) comes in time to kick off the holiday, both ladies are immediately drawn to him that cause chaos and whole lot of laughs as each of them come up with crazy antics in order to get the Pastor’s attention. As they are in a tug of war battle for Pastor McKnight, they forget what this time of the year means amidst their feud with one another. Question is, what will it take for these two to realize what Christmas is all about. The third movie with the magic of Terri J. Vaughn is BET’s “Twas The Chaos Before Christmas” starring Cynthia Kaye McWilliams as ‘Jayla Mitchell’, Sherri Sheppard as ‘Valerie Russell’, Malachi Malik as ‘Morgan Russell’ and Affion Crockett as ‘Ed Russell’. This story is all about coming together and being able to appreciate this time of the year the most with the ones that you love. As wonderful as that may sound, things don’t take off that way when two families end up booking the same luxurious rental in Washington DC. Chaos erupts as both families have to deal with each other. In the perfect storm, Jayla (McWilliams) and Val (Sheppard), one unbeknownst to the other, book the same holiday rental on different websites, but over the same period of time. When the families all arrive at the same property, that’s when “Twas The Chaos Before Christmas” delivers the funny. The two families cannot be more different.

All of these films are decent, but none seem worthy enough to break the barrier of an all time classic holiday movie. Hallmark is known for making “white fairy-tale” Christmas movies every single year. With them debuting a film with an all-black cast does seem to be taking a step in the right direction. As efforts are being made to include more ethnic holiday films, it just doesn’t feel like it’s enough. What about Latino or Asian holiday films? Christmas isn’t a holiday being celebrated by one or even two races. Christmas is an all around holiday celebrated by all ethnicities that take part in the festivities. We may