There’s no getting around Christmas Eve, which changes just about everything about normal Monday programming, all but wipes out late night and brings to prime time big movies.
“It’s a Wonderful Life” (NBC, 8 p.m.), sure, but maybe a better bet, “Shrek the Third” (ABC, 9 p.m.), though it will keep the kids up so late it may not give you time to assemble their new bikes under the tree.
Make do with the adequate holiday variation, “Shrek the Halls” (ABC, 8:0 p.m.0, paired with the sturdy “Disney’s Prep & Landing” (ABC, 8 p.m.).
Otherwise there’s no shortage of holiday movies, among them:”A Star for Christmas” (ION, 7 p.m.), “Santa Clause 3” (ABC Family, 7 p.m.), “Surviving Christmas” (More Max, 7:0 p.m.), “Christmas is Here Again” (The CW, 8 p.m.), “The March Sisters at Christmas” (Lifetime, 8 p.m.), “Lucky Christmas” (Hallmark, 8 p.m.), “A Christmas Wedding Date” (ION, 9 p.m.), “It’s Christmas Carol” (Hallmark, 10 p.m.), and “The Road to Christmas” (Lifetime, 10 p.m.).
Christmas movies without Christmas in the title include the original “Miracle on 34th Street” (AMC, 7 and 9:15 p.m.), “Love Actually” (Cinemax, 8 p.m.) and “The Shop Around the Corner” (TCM, 8 p.m.), the first of several Christmas Eve choices of Robert Osborne: “Come to the Stable” (TCM, 10 p.m.), “Auntie Mame” (TCM, midnight), “The Man Who Came to Dinner” (TCM, 2:30 a.m.) and “And So They Were Married” (TCM, 4:30 a.m.).
Pick your Dickens: Jim Carrey in 2009’s “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” (Disney, 8 p.m.) or Patrick Stewart in “A Christmas Carol” (TNT, 9 p.m.) from 10 years earlier.
The one with the 24 hour marathon, starting every even hour, is “A Christmas Story” (TBS, 8 and 10 p.m., midnight, 2, 4 and 6 a.m.).
And for those not quite in the spirit: “Bad Santa” (Comedy Central, 10 p.m.). Along these lines: “Bad Teacher” (Starz, 10:35 p.m.).
Leave it to the stern director to stick to his script with a new episode of “Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States” (Showtime, 8 p.m.) that concentrates on Vietnam.
And her’s my vote for a new holiday tradition, the weird R&B musical soap from R. Kelly, “Trapped in the Closet” (IFC, 8 and 10 p.m.).
It’s certainly a silent night for sports, save for SMU vs. Fresno State (ESPN, 8 p.m.) in the Hawaii Bowl.
Otherwise, the “Celebrity Beach Bowl” (NBC Sports, 8 and 9 p.m.), a flag football game, will have to do.
Mormons go a’caroling on a replay of “Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings).
Later, what goes into preserving the films in the National Film Registry on “Independent Lens” (PBS, 10 p.m., check local listings).
There’s a marathon of four episodes of “Raising Hope” (Fox, 8 p.m.) and a double episode of “How I Met Your Mother” (CBS, 8 p.m.).
The annual telecast from the Vatican comes with “Christmas Eve at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome” (NBC, 11:35 p.m.). From a Lutheran church in Reading, Penn., comes “One Christmas Story: People Rich in Spirit” (CBS, 11:35 p.m.). [No monologues are planned at either].
In what is pretty much a children’s TV take on Andy Warhol’s 1963 film “Sleep” is the “Snooze-A-Thon” (Sprout, 8 p.m.), featuring various adult and puppet characters from Chica and the Pajaminals to the Wiggles all snoozing off to Dreamland. All on a 11-hour loop, it’s meant to be non-narcotic.
Daytime Talk
Kelly & Michael: Matt Damon, Aretha Franklin. The View: Bette Midler, Billy Crystal, Bailee Madison, dr. Doris Day (rerun). The Talk: Neve Campvell, Chef Jacques Haeringer, Texas Battle, Carnie Wilson. Ellen DeGeneres: Emmitt Smith, Cheryl Burke (rerun).
Late Talk
All are prempted but Jimmy Kimmel: Samuel L. Jackson, cast of “Jersey Shore,” Ed Sheeran (rerun). Tavis Smiley: Jeremy Irons (rerun). Chelsea Handler: Marisa Tomei, Liz Carey, Sarah Colonna, Ross Mathews.