TV REVIEWS : Puff! It’s a Dolly Parton Christmas at Her Home

“Whether the snow is real or manufactured, there’s nothing artificial” about the joy of Christmas, Dolly Parton explains, standing outside a Tennessee church locale that’s been flooded with ersatz white stuff for her new TV special, “Dolly Parton: Christmas at Home” (tonight at 9 on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42).

Likewise, whether the down-home hokum in this hourlong puffball is real or manufactured, somehow there’s nothing artificial about it, at least if you believe that Parton’s private and public personas merged long ago. Certainly its twangy, nostalgic schmaltz at least represents a reality absent from her glitzy, short-lived ABC variety series of three years back. They’re content to narrow her appeal this time to the sticks, or the wanna-be stick dwellers among us.

The network has done well to stick the star back in Tennessee with family, sans celebrity guests. Introducing her kinfolk, Parton explains, “I want everybody to see ‘em and love ‘em the way I do, because they’re real special people.” Viewers will no doubt leave feeling that, alas, they still don’t love Dolly’s family as much as Dolly does, so thoroughly does she hog the spotlight, as well she should.

Singing all the way-hay-hay-hay, Parton cuts cookies with the kids, takes them out on a hay wagon, visits an old folks’ home and church, and stops off at the Nativity scene at her theme park, Dollywood, sharing precious childhood memories about not being allowed to wear makeup in the meantime. At these various locales, it’s fun to watch the darting eyes of the bystanders she walks up to, who don’t know whether to look at her face or, uh, the rest of her, which has been trimmed much more fancifully than any tree.

You could complain about the lip-syncing, in which case you’ll probably raise a fuss that that isn’t her real hair, either. Fans will be charmed and non-fans will look on in abject horror, and never the twain shall meet.

Shot on video, this all seems incredibly voyeuristic, designed to appeal especially to children of dysfunctional families who can fantasize about the Christmases they never had and the vivacious aunt with decolletage they never had. Parton’s even friendlier and bigger than life than “that list-makin’, note-takin’, white-bearded, red-coated, pot-bellied chimney crawler.”