Sabrina Carpenter and Shania Twain perform in A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter on Netflix.Alfredo Flores/Netflix
Sabrina Carpenter fans may have had a hard time securing tickets to her Short N’ Sweet arena tour, but everyone can catch this year’s top TikTok artist during her Netflix holiday special.
Variety musical special A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter streams Dec. 6 at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET. The show will feature duets with Chappell Roan, Tyla, Shania Twain and Kali Uchis. There will also be comedic moments with the help of guests including Quinta Brunson, Cara Delevingne, Kyle Mooney, Megan Stalter and Sean Astin. The main event is, of course, Carpenter, who will perform songs from her 2023 holiday EP Fruitcake as well as other familiar holiday tunes.
As the headliner and one of the special’s producers, Carpenter’s goal is surely to put her own stamp on the tried and tested holiday variety special format – and that might be enough for her legions of fans. Others may stream for the pure nostalgia.
After all, Christmas variety shows have a long TV history, starting in the 1950s and sixties with entertainers such as Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Mitzi Gaynor. Judy Garland memorably invited viewers into her “home” with The Judy Garland Christmas Show in 1963. In the 1970s, Cher hosted the Lennon Sisters, the Hudson Brothers and others on her Christmas specials, while Perry Como and Andy Williams each won more than 40 per cent of American TV audiences with their own specials.
That trend continued well into the 1980s and nineties, with everyone from Pee-wee Herman and George Burns to Vanessa Williams and Dolly Parton bringing the festive cheer.
At the time, viewing options were more limited than they are today. With the rise of cable, such specials didn’t attract the same viewership they once did because there were so many other offerings. So, when stars such as Lady Gaga and The Muppets or Michael Bublé hosted specials in the early 2010s, they weren’t as well-received as their mid-century predecessors.
Meanwhile, the holiday variety show format has also expanded. In the early 2000s, as specialty and cable channels swelled, stars with specific audiences such as Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson, Jeff Dunham, the Osbournes and Stephen Colbert also attracted more targeted viewers to their respective Christmas offerings.
These days, with more people cutting the cord – and with classics from the Rankin/Bass universe such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Frosty the Snowman readily available year-round on streaming –traditional network holiday offerings are no longer considered appointment viewing. That has paved the way for variety specials to make a comeback particularly during a time the likes of Netflix, Prime Video and Apple TV+ are experimenting with live streaming.
In 2019, Amazon Studios produced The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show, with performances from stars including James Corden, Camila Cabello and Lana Del Rey. A few years earlier, in 2015, Bill Murray’s Netflix special, A Very Murray Christmas, directed by Sofia Coppola, received two Emmy nominations. Last year, AppleTV+ got in on the action by capitalizing on its Ted Lasso love with Home for Christmas, a special from star Hannah Waddingham.
All the while, mainstream networks continue to offer star-studded specials such as the Derek and Julianne Hough-led Holidays With the Houghs, Gwen Stefani’s You Make It Feel Like Christmas and this year’s Jimmy Fallon special, Holiday Seasoning Spectacular, which aired this week and featured guests including Dolly Parton, Justin Timberlake, Meghan Trainor and the Jonas Brothers.
Sabrina Carpenter’s Nonsense Holiday may be a 2024 version of an early-20th-century format, but it retains the same spirit of nostalgia. And after the year we just had, cozy, comforting and familiar may be just what we all need.