Inside Office Stars Angela Kinsey, Brian Baumgartner Hallmark Reunion

Angela Kinsey is officially a Hallmark holiday movie star and she brought The Office costar Brian Baumgartner along for the ride.

“They told me they were looking for the role of the postman, and they were open to having a cast a member from my Office cast play the role,” Kinsey, 53, exclusively told Us Weekly of how Baumgartner, 51, got the gig in Confessions of a Christmas Letter. “I immediately thought of Brian and I reached out.”

She recalled, “I texted him and he said, ‘yes,’ and we had the best time. We picked up right where we left off.”

Kinsey added that it was “so fun” working with Baumgartner again after playing Angela Martin and Kevin Malone, respectively, on The Office from 2005 to 2013.

Confessions of a Christmas Letter, which premiered on Sunday, November 17, marks Kinsey’s first Hallmark movie.

In the film, she plays Settie Rose, who enters her town’s annual holiday letter writing contest. To win the competition, she enlists a struggling novelist named Juan (Alex Santos) to help her but things get out of hand when a rumor about Juan being engaged to Settie’s daughter, Lily (Lilian Doucet-Roche), spreads. Baumgartner makes a cameo as Settie’s local postman.

While Settie is very competitive — especially with her neighbor — Kinsey told Us she has a much jollier approach to the holidays.

“I do love Christmas. I think that’s one thing I shared with my character,” she said. “My husband kind of jokes, he says, ‘I don’t think we can fit another Christmas decoration in our house.’ Everything’s Christmas. Every bedroom. I decorate every nook of the house. And so I do share that with her.”

Kinsey’s annual traditions also include a nod to The Office. “On The Office there was the episode where we would play — we played Yankee Swap and my character got babies playing jazz, that old crazy episode,” she said, referring to the sitcom’s season 2, episode 10, scene where they play a twist on the white elephant game.

“After that episode aired, I started hosting Yankee Swap parties and all of our friends would come over. Some of my favorite gifts in my house are from that get together,” Kinsey revealed. “I have a butter dish that I actually won. One year Jenna [Fischer] hosted it, and I won the butter dish. You would not believe the trading war that happened over this butter dish. It got fierce, but I won it.”

Kinsey noted that the guest list is a “total mix” of her friends, many of whom are from her days on The Office. (Kinsey and Fischer, who played Pam Beesly, have been cohosting the “Office Ladies” podcast since 2019.)

“Our Office cast is still very close, so any of us, if we’re in town or near each other, we try to reach out,” Kinsey shared. “We try to support each other, and I love that about our show.”

While some of Kinsey’s traditions are linked to her comedy past, she is also a fan of spending time with her family. (Kinsey shares one daughter, Isabel, 16, with her ex-husband, Warren Lieberstein.)

“On Christmas Eve, we all get to open one gift, but you don’t get to pick the gift. Someone else has to pick it for you,” Kinsey told Us. “So if you’re eyeballing that big package in the corner, you don’t get to open it. And we get in our cozy Christmas pajamas, and I love that.”

When it comes to Christmas morning, the actress said her husband, Joshua Snyder, takes over since he’s a baker. “Oh my gosh, everything he makes is so good,” she gushed. “He gets up early before everyone else and he goes downstairs, and he makes coffee cake. And so when we wake up, the whole house smells so delicious and it just, you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s Christmas right away.’”

The feel-good part of the holiday season is one of the reasons Kinsey signed on for Hallmark’s Confessions of a Christmas Letter.

“It’s very relatable to me,” she said of the story line. “I have a few family members that do the Christmas letter and they tell you everything that happened with their family. Maybe they embellish a little bit on everyone’s accomplishments, but I absolutely love them. I live for them.”

Kinsey continued: “I thought it was just a fun message too, about you don’t have to be perfect. The Christmas decorations don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to get the perfect gift. It’s about making memories with your family. That’s all that really matters.”

Confessions of a Christmas Letter’s encore airs on Hallmark Channel Monday, November 18, at 6 p.m. ET.

With reporting by Christina Garibaldi