Televised Christmas specials have been around almost as long as TV itself. It’s a seasonal signifier on a par with snow, tinsel and department store stampedes. If you live in a part of the world without well-defined seasons, you could always figure out what time of the year it is by flipping on the telly, and if you found your favourite sitcom suddenly strewn with garlands and twinkling lights, you’d know Santa would be making a housecall pretty soon.

Not much has changed. Even in the streaming era, many platforms have made a tradition of throwing back to the good, old-fashioned holiday variety show, recruiting a bunch of big-name movie stars or pop singers to get together on a soundstage and croon a few yuletide classics. Most of them come and go, melting from memory like old Frosty when

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