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During her first Christmas here, my wife simply could not believe that American television sleeps through Christmas. She was brought up with special Christmas specials, first-run episodes of existing series created specifically for broadcast during the Christmas holiday and premium films. The concept is so alien here that The Office—The Christmas Specials had to be retitled The Office Special for US release even though the plot centers around the Wernham Hogg Christmas party.
Some US cable networks are a little better, although they tend to repeat themselves (every Rankin-Bass Christmas special save Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer airs continuously on ABC Family, and there is Turner’s annual 24-hour marathon showings of A Christmas Story), but it’s at once too much and too little. It depresses that so far as US network television and its local affiliates are concerned, Christmas ends on the morning of the 25th, back to business the following day.
