Ogden, Utah: Christmas-Town, USA

Ogden is the quintessential holiday town. With Historic 25th Street’s shops, restaurants, and bars set against the backdrop of the towering, snow-covered Wasatch Mountains, it has the look and feel of a Norman Rockwell painting. Throw Ogden’s Christmas Village into the mix with tens of thousands of lights and dozens of decorated cottages, and this winter wonderland looks like something out of a Hallmark movie.

In fact, the Ogden area has provided dozens of filming location for several Christmas movies from Hallmark, Lifetime, and Peacock in recent years. Interestingly, most of these films have been shot during the summer with Hollywood magic providing the snow.

Seeing iconic Ogden-area locations decked out with fake snow and full Christmas decorations as well as actors and extras standing around in the summer heat wearing down parkas is always interesting, and locals look forward to seeing the finished results when they begin airing in November.

Editors try to make shots like this very short so you don’t notice the green trees and fake snow ending abruptly on lush, summer grass. However a trip to Ogden around the holidays can provide the real thing.

If you’re a holiday movie buff, here are a few locations you’ll recognize on your next visit:

In this Hallmark movie starring Rachel Boston, Wes Brown, and Richard Karn, Julia (Boston) comes home to spend the holidays with her family running their inn only to get caught up in a longstanding feud with a rival business. To complicate matters, the competition is an irresistible guy called Ryan (Brown).

Snowberry Inn and Compass Rose Lodge in Ogden Valley provided the filming locations for the competing inns, and the town scenes were filmed at Huntsville Square and in downtown Ogden.

This Hallmark movie starring Ashley Williams, Kimberly Williams-Paisley and Kevin Nealon tells the story of two sisters who find a new sense of purpose and discover what they both truly need in life during the holidays. Ogden’s Historic 25th Street is featured prominently.

This 2021 Peacock original starring Betsy Brandt and Kyle Richards follows the Christmas Queens of the North Pole and the Best Holiday House decorating competition and had several scenes filmed on 25th Street.

Kim and Theo meet on Black Friday shopping and there is spark between them, but the couple gets separated due to panic. Both of them can't forget each other and try to search with little information. Can destiny bring back them together? Perhaps if Theo takes enough trips to Kim’s paleontology lab at Ogden’s Dinosaur Park.

After filming “Check Inn to Christmas” in 2019, its producers fell in love with Compass Rose Lodge and wrote the entire screenplay for “A Cozy Christmas Inn” with the lodge itself as a principal character, including First Lift Coffee and the on-site HALO Observatory.

The story follows real-estate exec Erika (Jodi Sweetin) as she travels to Alaska during the holidays to acquire a bed-and-breakfast and discover that it's owned by her ex (David O’Donell). Soon she falls in love with the town...and maybe with him again?

The entirety of the film was shot with Huntsville Square standing in for the fictional town of Garland, Alaska. Filming took place during the pandemic with cast, crew and hotel staff staying in a quarantine bubble at the 15-room boutique hotel and undergoing daily COVID testing during production.

This film is one of the exceptions to summer filming and was actually shot in late November and early December and features honest-to-goodness Utah snow.

You can enjoy some of that real snow and holiday spirit by booking your stay at Compass Rose Lodge today!

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