WEEKEND TV : MOST YULE SPECIALS LACK THE SPIRIT

It’s only one sentence in an hourlong program, but Amy Grant’s observation near the end of her special on NBC Sunday night hits with near-gale force impact amid the avalanche of Christmas programming seen on TV these past few weeks.

She’s talking about what Christmas is--a time for family and friends, a time for giving thanks. “Most of all,” the young singer adds, “Christmas is a time to celebrate because God loved us enough to send us His son.”

It’s hardly a surprising notion coming from Grant; she has made her mark, after all, by using the pop music format to perform songs that reflect her strong Christian beliefs. What is startling is hearing it expressed on a network entertainment program.

Stan Freberg pointedly noted in his classic record “Green Christmas” 27 years ago that the commercial aspects of the holiday had all but obscured its origins, and this continues to be true in commercial television’s Christmas specials. Religion, except insofar as it is reflected in the yuletide carols, is avoided like a diseased turkey.

Mostly what we get are bland concoctions of shallow sentiment, platitudes about sharing and warmth--and lots of commercials.

A prime example is CBS’ “The Christmas Gift,” a new TV movie airing Sunday at 9 p.m. on Channels 2 and 8. It’s simplistic and manipulative and lacks, shall we say, a certain dramatic tension: How likely do you think it is that John Denver, the Rocky Mountain Kid, cast here as an architect for a major New York development company, is going to sell out a quaint mountain town in Colorado to build a condominium-packed ski resort?

The cast, which includes Jane Kaczmarek, Pat Corley, Mary Wickes, Edward Winter and Gennie James, is likable enough, but director Michael Pressman and writers Jeb Rosebrook, Christopher Grabenstein and Ronald Venable are merely pushing buttons. Small-town life is exalted; development in the name of progress is execrated. Denver breaks character midway through to sing a song to his daughter and, for good measure, there is even a plea for sympathy for the American farmer thrown in.

NBC’s “Christmas Snow,” airing at 8 tonight on Channels 4, 36 and 39, is not as contrived as “The Christmas Gift” but it isn’t any more satisfying. The first of what NBC is calling a series of prime-time “Family Specials,” it’s strong on characterization and weak--very weak--on story.

Katherine Helmond plays a candy-store owner and widowed mother of two foster children; Sid Caesar is her long-time landlord who decides, two days before Christmas, to evict her from both her store and her home. They play the roles with warmth and a nice touch of eccentricity, but the emotional resolution they finally reach is undercut by a crisis that requires viewers to believe that an elderly man could spend nearly 24 hours outside in the freezing cold without major trauma.

Meanwhile, aside from the observation about the meaning of Christmas, “Amy Grant--Headin’ Home for the Holidays” is a low-key, nonglitzy variety show whose star makes up with sincerity what she lacks in charisma. Handsomely shot on location in Montana, it airs Sunday at 10 p.m. on Channels 4, 36 and 39.