Ian Harding is the star of not one but two holiday projects this season — but when it comes to celebrating at home, he’s not eager to decorate.
“I’m not big on lights outside,” Harding, 38, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting his Hallmark+ series, Holidazed, and Netflix’s Our Little Secret.
The actor explained that the possibility of outdoor lights leading to an “electrical fire problem” factors into his resistance to the tradition. “At least that’s the paranoid part of me,” Harding said with a laugh.
“But [I’m] big on indoor wreaths and bells. I like that,” he said of his decoration style, noting it “drives our dogs nuts.” Harding and his wife, Sophie Hart, have two dogs, Mochi and Bailey. They also have a son, whom they welcomed in 2022.
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Despite being an indoor Christmas fan, Harding confessed his decorations “usually come out right around, like, the 23rd” of December. “We just have so much going on that we’re like, ‘Oh my God! Christmas is next week. Oh, OK,’” he teased. “And then we decorate.”
Harding’s holiday home décor isn’t the only thing he’s still trying to perfect. The Pretty Little Liars alum told Us that he hasn’t decided what Christmas classics he’ll show his son after watching some odd ones as a kid.
“I don’t know what this says about our family. We liked a good rich drama on Christmas Eve,” he laughed. “And so for years my family, we would watch the Christmas Carol with George C. Scott, which is so heavy and in some cases truly terrifying.”
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Harding teased, “I don’t know what my dad was thinking” when he put on the 1984 version of the iconic film. “He was like, ‘It’s good, it’ll enrich your soul or whatever,’” he recalled, noting, “There were parts of it [that were].”
Other parts, however, haunted him. “I knew if we got to the part where, like, the guy opens his coat, and it’s got the two malnourished little children. I mean, I was not sleeping that night,” Harding confessed. “And not because I was waiting for Santa.”
The actor explained that after watching A Christmas Carol with his wife one time, they realized they didn’t want to keep up that tradition. “We haven’t really returned to that,” he said.
Harding is thinking about watching 1992’s The Muppets Christmas Carol instead. “Now that I have a child, let’s do the Muppets as opposed to heavy English period drama,” he told Us.
While Harding is used to a darker take on the holidays, he recalled watching Hallmark movies as well. “It’s funny that we’ve now come full circle,” he said, referring to his role in Hallmark+’s Holidazed.
Harding plays Josh Hill in the holiday series, which released the first two episodes on November 14. New episodes drop every Thursday.
“It’s set basically in a cul-de-sac [with] a bunch of different families,” Harding told Us of the premise. “And they’re sort of interlocking stories, and everybody is sort of dealing with Christmas and both the highs and the lows that comes with that holiday season together.”
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He teased, “My character, I’ve come back to see my family. It was supposed to be sort of a quick trip, and I have, not an ulterior motive, but there’s more than one reason that I’m coming back.”
Harding added: “Then through some shenanigans, maybe even my own incompetence, I end up needing to stay for various, dare I say, legal reasons. Hilarity and potential romance ensue.”
In addition to his Holidazed performance, Harding stars in Netflix’s Our Little Secret with Lindsay Lohan.
In the film, which premiered on Wednesday, November 27, Harding plays Logan, who pretends not to know Lohan’s Avery, despite dating for years in the past. When the exes are forced together for Christmas while dating siblings, they become each other’s allies.
“I think they just get each other. Even years later, like, small little details that are in the scripts, [show that connection],” Harding said of their character dynamic. “They have to go cut down a Christmas tree together. And he just remembers this coffee thing [she likes].”
He explained that Avery “never thinks she’s going to be cold, and yet she’s always cold,” so Logan brings a jacket to the tree lot.
“I think he just knows her and maybe she doesn’t wanna admit this, but she knows him,” Harding teased, hinting that they are “bound” to catch feelings again, but he added that fans have to “tune in” to see if they actually rekindle their romance.
Holidazed is currently streaming on Hallmark+ and Our Little Secret is available to watch on Netflix.
