Pink Christmas: with Too Cool for Christmas, here TV expands the idea of what makes a "family" holiday movie and gives jolly old St. Nick a makeover of its own.

The first original movie produced to air on gay and lesbian premium cable network Here TV, Too Cool for Christmas is a rare TV movie in that it features key gay characters without making their sexuality the main issue. Too Cool is a holiday special about superficial teenage girl Lindsay (Brooke Nevin), who is planning to skip out on her parents--two gay men, played by Barclay Hope and Adam Harrington--over Christmas. But when she develops a friendship with the real Santa Claus (George Hamilton--who was, alas, not available to comment) and helps him change his image, she learns the value of family and giving.

It was a traditional straight holiday movie when director Sam Irvin read it, until Here TV president Paul Colichman suggested that Lindsay's parents be two dads. "The idea was to make it very matter-of-fact," said Irvin. "We didn't have to change a single word of dialogue, and it worked like a charm."

"Families in the gay community can enjoy this story, and it's important to have a film where little boys and girls can see that it's normal to have two guys as parents," adds Colichman.

Ironically, for all the gay elements in Too Cool, a straight version was shot at the same time as the gay version. "We shot a straight version with a mom and a dad for the foreign market," explains Colichman, "but I am happy to say that most international territories have opted to buy the gay version."

The film attracted its fair share of mainstream talent, including Hamilton and TV stalwart Donna Mills, who shot a day's work for a cameo as Santa's wife, Mrs. Claus. "Because I have a 10-year-old girl, I wasn't anxious to go to Canada to shoot a movie, but this was such a charming script that I couldn't say no," she says. "We have a couple of lesbian couples with kids at my daughter's school, and I know some gay male parents through the business, and I see a great deal of commitment in them."

Meanwhile, Irvin is already onto his next Here movie: Deadly Skies, an asteroid disaster movie in which one of the chief characters is a gay ex-military man who is involved in the race to stop the collision. His lover in the script is still in the military and joins the mission to destroy the asteroid. "He's our gay action hero," says Irvin.