From left, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis singing on Cash's 1977 holiday special, in which they sang "This Train Is Bound for Glory" as a tribute to Elvis Presley.  The spurious âwar on Christmasâ bemoaned on Fox News notwithstanding, a war really has been going on in recent years at the holidays: a war between traditional television Christmas specials and that aggressive musical interloper, the singing-competition finale. Itâs a mismatch. With December now dominated by singing competitions â âThe X Factorâ and âThe Voiceâ wrapped up last week; âThe Sing-Offâ ends Monday night â the old-fashioned variety-show-style Christmas special feels as if it could go extinct any year now.  Until a few days ago, I would have been among the first to say good riddance. Then I spent a dizzying amount of time with Perry Como, Dean Martin, Danny Kaye and assorted other ghosts of Christmas shows past, and now Iâm not so sure. If this clunky breed of holiday entertainment dies out, an odd combination of unintentional absurdism and historical documentation will die with it.  The Christmas special, a programming phenomenon almost as old as television itself, celebrates the season in songs, skits and comic banter, with a household name leading the bill aided by special guests who tend not to be particularly special. These shows often have a glossy take on the holidays that suggest a Norman Rockwell painting: ugly sweaters, blazing fireplaces, fake snow, even more fake conviviality.  A few of these gooey concoctions still turn up each year. Blake Shelton tried one in 2012. Kelly Clarkson had one two weeks ago on NBC. Celine Dionâs was last week on CBS. Michael BublÃ© seems determined to make his an annual event.  Someone is still watching these things, though just why remained a mystery to me after enduring Mr. BublÃ©âs rendition of âBlue Christmasâ this year and Ms. Clarksonâs hourlong commercial for her new Christmas album. Is there a reason this genre shouldnât be put out of its misery, I wondered? Perhaps weâre just in a bad stretch, and the Christmas fare of yore was better?  Alas, it wasnât. Some Christmas specials and Christmas episodes of variety shows from the 1960s and â70s can be found on DVD, and as entertainment, theyâre hard to get through: sluggish, sloppy, corny, rarely funny. Some feel alcohol-soaked, like those videos you post of yourself while drunk â they seem so witty at the time â then have to pay a scrubbing service to get off the Internet once you sober up.  Many seemingly took whoever happened to be hanging around the studio and made him or her a guest star. Was Rich Little really the best Perry Como could do for âPerry Comoâs Christmas Showâ (from 1974; MPI Home Video)? The appearance of Tony Orlando on âThe Johnny Cash Christmas Special 1976â (Shout! Factory) has the feel of a weird shotgun wedding.  These shows are full of forgettable musical numbers delivered by stars and extras who mill about in Victorian garb, smiling their heads off like Stepford Wives. Itâs tempting to think viewers back then were so vacuous that this glop spoke to them, but give the grandparents some credit. Itâs more likely that in those strife-filled decades, these shows seemed as artificial as they do today.  Not that they donât have entertaining or at least interesting moments. In âThe Dean Martin Christmas Showâ from 1968 (Time Life), Martin and Bob Newhart have a hilarious sketch together, Mr. Newhart playing a man who is quietly trying to return a toupee his wife gave him. The second Cash Christmas special, from 1977, broadcast not long after Elvis Presley died, includes a rendition of âThis Train Is Bound for Gloryâ dedicated to him by a striking foursome: Cash, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.  The real attraction, though, isnât the occasional hidden gem. Itâs the serendipitous sociology. These old-style Christmas shows have a tendency to catch the culture in oddly revelatory moments.  Take, for instance, a scene from the âChristmas With Danny Kayeâ compilation (Inception Media Group) in which Kaye sings a Christmas medley with Nat King Cole. Itâs from 1963, the year of the March on Washington and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Alabama. How forward-looking everyone involved must have felt to be delivering Christmas cheer via a duet by a black man and a white man. But hereâs the thing: Before they start singing, Cole and Kaye do a wince-inducing bit in which they mock the way the Japanese talk.  And thereâs âThe Carol Burnett Show: Christmas With Carolâ (Time Life), another compilation. Ms. Burnettâs comedy holds up much better than most, and for a 1974 show represented here she even landed an A-list guest, Alan Alda, then wildly popular because of âM*A*S*H.â  He turns up in a sketch with Ms. Burnettâs Eunice Higgins character, a Southern white-trash stereotype, playing Euniceâs brother Larry. Itâs refreshing, at least, to see family members screaming at one another on the holidays like real relatives do. But then Euniceâs husband (played by Harvey Korman) starts dropping painful allusions to homosexuality; see, he thinks Larry is gay. Itâs not a comedy-as-social-statement technique; itâs just, âLetâs pause during this season of hope and good will to mock gay people.â Mr. Alda looks as if heâs having a hard time not walking off the stage.  But the king of such oddities is in âThe Sonny & Cher Christmas Collectionâ (R2 Entertainment), which has three holiday shows by the couple, who specialized in selling an illusion of marital bliss. The third, from 1976, was the year after their divorce, an awkward effort to project a weâre-still-friends aura. A big Christmas medley features their young daughter, Chastity, not to mention Bob Keeshan, Captain Kangaroo. Near the medleyâs end, Cher grabs an infant (itâs her newborn son with Gregg Allman, Elijah Blue Allman) and blasts the chorus of âSanta Claus Is Coming to Townâ into his face from about a foot away.  The drooling baby seems to be able to see everything: all the lies of Christmas specials past; a complicated future in which Cher says Sonny was a less than ideal husband; Sonny dies in a skiing accident; Chastity, as Chaz, turns up on âDancing With the Stars.â The kid bursts into tears.
Surely the holiday-theme variety television specials of yesteryear â Carol Burnettâs, Danny Kayeâs, Dean Martinâs â were superior to this seasonâs offerings, right? Guess again.