Sarah Drew Shares Her Christmas Traditions—and There Are a Lot of Cocktails (Exclusive)

With perfect holiday timing, here comes Sarah Drew as a super sleuth in Hallmark's six-episode Mistletoe Murders, a compelling series that uncovers secrets big and small in her quaint tourist town of Fletcher's Grove.

The series, which is based on the popular Audible series of the same name, co-stars Sierra Marilyn Riley as Violet, Emily's close friend, and Peter Mooney, as Sam Wilner, a local police detective and Emily's potential love interest.

Drew talked with Parade recently about the show and even shared some of her personal favorite Christmas traditions.

The Grey's Anatomy star plays the leading character of Emily Lane, who owns a lovely year-round Christmas shop called Under the Mistletoe. Don't let the shop's beautiful trees, sweet decorations, and other festive knick-knacks fool you: Emily's observation skills are on alert to sniff out the town's secrets while keeping a big one herself.

“I love Emily’s backstory,” Drew says. “I love that the show has romance, intrigue, action, comedy, and drama and all the things that make people love all the things. So, I knew that I had to do it.

"It’s a combination of everybody’s two favorite genres; Christmas and mystery coming together,” she continues. “There is intrigue, drama, mystery, comedy, and romance that will make your heart explode. There is goodness at its core,” she added. “I know that you’re going to love taking this ride!”

Read on for our full interview with Sarah Drew.

Debra Wallace: What initially attracted you to the series and your character, Emily?

Sarah Drew: The final scene of the first episode made my jaw drop to the floor, and I was like I have to do this show. I loved it on the page immediately. It’s so well-written, and the mystery is so well-crafted. I love the dichotomy of the voiceover combined with what she’s presenting herself to be in all these different settings. I saw this character on the page, and I said, "I could play six different people while playing Emily Lane," and that’s an actor’s dream.

Related: Sarah Drew to Star in New Hallmark Series, Mistletoe Murders

What kind of mysteries are you attracted to?

Sometimes I watch the extremely dark ones, but I guess what I find so comforting about the mystery genre is that you watch a lot of messiness and darkness happen but then there’s always a resolution.

I love taking the ride and then coming to the completion and knowing that everything is going to be OK.

There’s something about experiencing justice being served that feels extremely comforting.

Do you have the gifts and talents required to be a real sleuth?

There are elements of sleuthing that I could be pretty good at, such as reading people, figuring out where they’re coming from, and finding a way to put them at ease so that I could get the information that I need from them. That is something Emily does on the show that I found so fun to play. I think I could do that pretty well.

But I don’t think I’m detail-oriented enough to be a true sleuth. You’ve got to see everything. You’ve got to have a mind palace happening where you’re connecting the dots.

How early are you getting ready for Christmas?

We start on Thanksgiving weekend by putting up our tree, and we put on the movie Spirited. That’s our new thing. We make some Manhattans and decorate our tree with the kids. So that’s when we kick off Christmas in our home.

What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?

I record a Christmas album every year with a fun music collective called The Reindeer Tribe. We get a theme and people bring music that they’ve written. We do Christmas carols according to that theme, and then we record it over one weekend. That’s one of my favorite traditions.

My other tradition is that we decorate ornaments and then go around our block and do a Christmas caroling party and hand out the ornaments and sing carols. It ends at our house sitting around a fire, having pizza, and having fun little Christmas cocktails.

Related: Alison Sweeney and Niall Matter Star in Hallmark Mystery's This Time Each Year

What else do you do to get in the Christmas spirit?

My other really fun thing is in the last several years I’ve either written or been in some sort of Christmas-related movie or show. I always have a pajama party where people come over and we eat breakfast for dinner, watch my movie, and there’s a special Christmas cocktail. It’s just so much fun. Even though we are in LA, I don’t need snow for it to feel like Christmas.

Related: Donna Kelce Racking Up Credits With Second Hallmark Movie in the Works

You played another character named Emily in Guiding Emily, the lovely Hallmark movie about a young woman who becomes blind after an accident. What were the challenges?

I did a lot of research. I watched so many YouTube videos of partially sighted and blind people who were speaking, being interviewed, and trying to figure out where you are putting your eyes when you’re speaking to somebody, and the challenges faced by folks who are in that community. We had two actors in the movie who were partially sighted and blind. I learned a lot from working with them.

Did you learn any lessons?

One of the greatest lessons was for a big portion of the movie, I had to be blindfolded. They would just sit me down in a chair with my blindfold on and I couldn’t see anything. It would be in between takes and I would just be sitting there. I lost track of the geography of the room and the space I was in. It was very interesting because I became acutely aware of how isolating it can feel if somebody is not verbally including you in the conversation.

You can very easily feel excluded if you’re not watching people’s body language and seeing people make eye contact with you, recognizing what’s happening, and nodding to someone from across the way or whatever. It was a really beautiful and challenging experience. I think it opened my heart to the community that I got to represent.

Related: Sarah Drew Faces Blindness in New Hallmark Tearjerker, Guiding Emily

Are you a big dog lover? The puppies and dogs were so cute.

I love, love, love dogs. I had the best dog for 16 years. She passed in 2021, but she was like our first baby. It took two years before my son was able to say “I think I could maybe think about getting another dog." He was like, “We’ve already had the perfect dog, why would we want to get another one?”

Related: Sarah Drew Says Her Grey's Anatomy Exit Was 'Mean and Unjust'

What life lessons have you learned personally and from your career that you want to pass on to your children?

Somebody asked me what is the engine that has driven my life in recent years, and I think my answer was that it's about hunting for the joy in life amid the pain. I think we’re holding pain and joy in our hands at all times.

So, when you’re in a moment of pain it can be about being on the hunt for what that nugget of gold is and what that joy is and what the purpose could be, and what [you] can learn through this. This has brought me so much joy in my life. I feel like I am hunting for gold in life all the time.

I believe it’s about recognizing that pain is going to be present. That’s the thing that I experience and live as an adult.  I hope to pass on to my kids that you just hunt for that gold. I believe that it’s always there if you look hard enough!

Mistletoe Murders premiered on Thursday, Oct. 31, exclusively on Hallmark’s streaming service, Hallmark+.

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