Kali Hawk and Damon Dayoub on Freeform’s The Truth About Christmas

Kali Hawk and Damon Dayoub shared why The Truth About Christmas is the perfect movie for getting into the spirit of the season, and how it may help you be your authentic self during the holidays.

Everyone knows that Santa Claus’ magic includes the ability to know whether kids have been naughty or nice throughout the year — but in The Truth About Christmas, Santa’s behavior monitoring extends to Jillian (Kali Hawk) a successful political consultant who is known for being able to “put a spin on anything”.

Jillian’s latest consulting project is the upcoming mayoral campaign for her boyfriend George (Damon Dayoub), but while she’s on her way to his family’s house for Christmas, she runs into some trouble while buying this year’s hottest toy: a Poppy Dot. Jillian ends up having “an unusual confrontation with a toy store Santa resulting in a drastic change in Jillian, where she can’t stop herself from wildly spilling the truth.” No longer having the ability to tell a lie (or prevent herself from sharing all of her true feelings about the people around her), “Jillian must find a way to make it stop before her holidays, her job and her relationship are ruined.”

More from Teen Dramas

• When do new episodes of Harlan Coben’s Shelter come out on Prime Video?
• Is Heartstopper canceled? (Will there be a season 3?)
• When do new episodes of The Summer I Turned Pretty come out on Prime Video?
• 3 School Spirits characters who definitely won’t be back in season 2
• School Spirits season 2: Everything to know about the second season

Things start to get crazy in The Truth About Christmas when George asks Jillian to find a new sold-out-everywhere Poppy Dot toy (and of course she waited till the last minute), so we were curious to know what Kali Hawk and Damon Dayoub wanted most for Christmas as kids. “I wanted a Nintendo really, really bad,” Dayoub said. “But we couldn’t afford one at the time. So, my mom got me like an Atari instead.”

We’re not sure if Dayoub ever ended up getting that Nintendo, but Kali Hawk says she never crossed her #1 present off her childhood wish list. “I always really wanted an Easy Bake Oven, and I never got one. Never in my whole life,” Hawk shared. “They never went away. Every generation of kid since they came out, whenever they came out, someone always was getting one. And supposedly I’ve heard that Damon is going to get one for me for Christmas. So, maybe this year I will get it.”

Hawk’s character Jillian spends the holidays trying to figure out how to break the “truth curse” before her wild honestly gets her shunned from George’s family, but Hawk finds the crazy concept to be extremely relatable. “My character goes through all of these crazy things only to emerge as a better person and to kind of move into a new phase of life in general,” she said.

“As young people, I feel like that’s what we’re always kind of going through. We’re always in that very cocoon sort of space waiting to emerge as a butterfly. So, this holiday season you get to go through a cocoon journey in The Truth About Christmas and then emerge into the new year as your authentic self.”

Christmas movies have become a staple in our holiday traditions, and Dayoub assured us that The Truth About Christmas is the perfect film for getting you into the spirit of the season. “This movie is everything you’re looking for in a Christmas movie,” he said.

“It’s got the Christmas charm; it has a message. It has some laughter to it and you can really have a good time with it. It’s a movie that you can sit down with your whole family, grandma, the kids, everybody can enjoy it… have some fun, drink some eggnog, eat a scone, and watch Kali be funny.”

Though it is a holiday movie, Hawk explained why the message in The Truth About Christmas is something that can be carried throughout the new year. “I feel like our movie is super crazy, and there’ll be an entire month of Christmas programming everywhere, but our movie is probably the only movie that you can watch all year long because it deals with the issues of being a young adult,” she shared. “Dealing with the older generations of people, trying to be your authentic self during the holiday season, but then, having the craziness that ensues forces you to have to be your authentic self throughout the rest of the year.”

Aside from all the Christmas magic and the positive message for viewers on communication and family relationships, Kali Hawk also spoke on why The Truth About Christmas is important for young audiences this season. “A lot of times in Christmas movies, you’ll see the female character have to choose between a career and the guy, and they’re encouraged to choose the career because that’s the strong woman choice, but the strong person choice is you want to have both,” she said.

“You want to have a career and you want to have a love life. You want to be yourself and you want to be loved for being yourself, and in this movie, you get to see all of those things work out in a reality-based way.” Hawk said she hopes that audiences will take examples from Jillian’s qualities, choices, and experiences as they watch the film.

So what did Kali Hawk and Damon Dayoub reveal is at the top of their own Christmas wish lists this year? “I’d love an Easy Bake Oven. I think that’d be really great,” Hawk said.

And while her goal was to fulfill a childhood dream, Dayoub had something else in mind. “I want a vacuum,” he said. “I want a vacuum this year, and I’ve never said anything more adult than what I just said right there.”

We hope Santa’s taking notes…

Watch a trailer for The Truth About Christmas below:

We hope you’re ready to go through a “cocoon journey”! Freeform’s The Truth About Christmas premieres Sunday, Nov. 25 at 9/8c as part of the network’s Kickoff To Christmas.