ANYTHING ON, EBENEZER?

By JAMES COLLINS

Thirty years ago, it could have been a routine performed by Bob Newhart (George & Leo): "What if a television executive got a phone call from God, who wanted to do a show based on the story of Christmas? I think it might go something like this. 'So you've got this woman who's pregnant, but she hasn't had sex with anyone...And there are these, these three kings?...Then they lay the baby in a manger. Pardon me, what's a manger?...Is this a gag? Is this one of the guys in the office?'"

The religious aspect of Christmas has never fit very well with television, so every year at this time, when the holiday specials and Christmas-themed episodes of regular shows crowd the schedule, it's almost impossible to find programs that actually treat the event supposedly being celebrated--the birth of Jesus Christ. Of course, the secularization of Christmas is a process that is already far along, and by serving up Jack Frost and chestnuts, TV is simply satisfying the tastes of its viewers. Still, it is remarkable that of the dozens of shows created especially for this Christmas season, the one that seems to have the most religious content is A&E's Mysteries of the Bible: The Miracle of Chanukah. For the rest, it's all heartwarming dramas, star-studded specials, animated fables and sitcoms filled with Yuletide cheer.

Some of these, naturally, will be more enjoyable than others. No doubt, lots of people will want to watch Kathie Lee Gifford celebrate Christmas with Kenny Rogers and Enrique Iglesias in a special, We Need a Little Christmas, that airs Dec. 12 at 10 p.m. ET on CBS. But you suspect that if one of those ghosts had used this show to convince Scrooge how wonderful Christmas is, the old man would have been justified in denying Tiny Tim his goose. Yes, many Christmas customs are pagan in origin, but does that justify a special Christmas episode of Melrose Place in which Jennifer tries to blackmail Lexi, who ODs? And as for the drama specials, most of which seem to star Richard Thomas, they certainly ought to make us cry, but they too often resort to the cheapest tricks to do so.

One drama that manages to be intelligent as well as sentimental is a remake of Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory, which CBS will broadcast at 9 p.m. on Dec. 21. Based on the autobiographical story by Capote, it stars Patty Duke and is set in Alabama in the 1930s. Duke plays Sook, a childlike but loving old woman, who lives with her two sisters, her brother and her little cousin Buddy. Sook and Buddy (the adorable Eric Lloyd) are best friends. This relationship offends Sook's bossy, practical sister Jennie (Piper Laurie). They should be separated, Jennie decides, and Buddy must be sent to military school after the holidays.

When you first see Duke and hear her speak her opening line, "Oh my, it's fruitcake weather," your heart sinks. Old-age makeup and a Southern accent--this means for sure that we're in for a wondrous, lovable eccentric. Fruitcake weather, indeed. Duke does play Sook with flibbertigibbet mugging and a sort of clown walk, but you see why this lonely, sensitive boy loves her, and by the time they have to part, you are almost as tearful as they both are. What is most admirable about A Christmas Memory is that the battle between responsibility and emotion is a fair one. Jennie is cartoonishly dislikable, but the arguments she makes for sending Buddy away are serious and convincing. That (along with Laurie's performance) makes the drama more tense, more interesting and ultimately more poignant than if she were simply a wicked stepmother.

Holiday in Your Heart, on ABC, Dec. 14 at 9 p.m., is a good deal more simplistic than A Christmas Memory, but what can you expect? One is based on a story by Truman Capote, the other on a novel co-written by a 14-year-old, country singer LeAnn Rimes, who stars in the drama as herself. This is truly a heart-toasting affair, as Rimes must choose between seeing her grandmother, who has cancer and may not survive an operation planned for the next day, or making her debut at the Grand Ole Opry. The show features Rimes' incredible pipes, a touch of the supernatural and plot twists you can see coming from way over yonder. Most intriguingly, Bernadette Peters has been cast as a big-haired Nashville legend. Bernadette Peters?

Somehow or other, these elements all come together pretty well. Rimes has a natural, saucy way about her in front of the camera, and Peters does a more than creditable job of convincing the viewer she is from the Ozarks. Probably because we know it is a 14-year-old's fairy tale, the story seems artless and winning, rather than just ridiculous. The person who really makes it all work is Rebecca Schull as Rimes' grandmother. Tender, bright, steady, Schull succeeds in making you actually care whether Grandma Teeden pulls through. In a flashback she visits the Rimes character (played here by a little girl) in the hospital, and when they begin to sing Amazing Grace, the susceptible viewer will begin to blubber. Of course, if it is attached like a parasite to Amazing Grace, any scene will be moving, but here the results are earned.

Even when a Christmas program is really supposed to be about Christmas, the Christ part gets downplayed. The Soul of Christmas, a special on PBS (various dates) features Thomas Moore, the author of Care of the Soul, and a group of Celtic musicians. With this show, Moore wants us to see Christmas as an occasion that can be celebrated by "people of all faiths or no faith." No one wants to be a spoilsport and criticize such ecumenism, but you wonder at what point a religion's symbols become so generalized that they lose all meaning. Still, Moore might have created a program that combined wonderful music with a discussion of how different religious traditions intersect at Christmas. Instead, he has provided light, pop-Celtic versions of carols and the most vague and meaningless maunderings--"We may never know what Christmas means, because it is a mystery, but we do know it has something to do with having hope."

Moore also invites Martin Sheen (The Missiles of October, Apocalypse Now) to share his thoughts on the Nativity. Sheen explains that "swaddling clothes" are the death shrouds that traveling Jews carried with them in ancient times and that Mary would have had at hand. "The first thing that touches [Jesus]," he says, "is a burial shroud." Moore is very impressed with this and riffs for a while about good and bad, and life and death. But in fact, what Sheen says lacks any foundation. For Moore, a scholar and a former monk, to purvey such ignorance, and embellish on it, is maddening.

The best thing about television at Christmastime is the return of classics like A Charlie Brown Christmas, which remains amazingly endearing, and the still spooky Alastair Sim version of A Christmas Carol. It is probably silly to become nostalgic about styles of animation, but the stop-action method of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has such a handmade look that you miss it when you watch ABC's Santa vs. the Snowman, a clever new film with smooth computer-generated characters and sets. Airing on Dec. 13 at 8:30 p.m., it tells the story of a snowman who is jealous of Santa, and it includes a Star Wars-like battle between snowmen and elves. Sadly, It's a Wonderful Life has become nearly unwatchable, having been converted from a charming old movie to an overblown cultural phenomenon. Another vintage special, unfortunately, is now much harder to find. Local stations used to broadcast a shot of a burning Yule log for hours on Christmas Day. It was always strangely affecting to envision families opening presents with this image on their TV screens. But, of course, those simpler folkways are vanishing.