Amy Grant’s Christmas Cheer--Pure and Sincere

Christmas is supposed to be the season of miracles, and if there’s anything that borders on the miraculous at this time of year, it’s a holiday pop concert free of push-button sentimentality. Amy Grant’s Christmas show Saturday at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, however, turned out to be that wonder of wonders, thanks predominantly to its namesake’s absolute sincerity.

The show featured nearly 3 hours of music and ingratiating chat from Grant and her guests: contemporary Christian performers Michael W. Smith and the Arkansas-based vocal troupe Point of Grace, Samoan sibling quartet the Katinas, plus her own six-man band and the 70-member Nashville Symphony. Grant never struck a note--musical or emotional--that rang hollow.

It’s her sixth year doing the Christmas tour, and she keeps things fresh with regular doses of new material. This year she’s drawing from her fourth Christmas album, “A Christmas to Remember.” It provided one of the show’s most touching moments in her duet with Smith on Chris Rice’s “Welcome to Our World,” which took a break from the overriding seasonal good cheer to acknowledge human suffering and apply a Christian message of hope for relief with utmost simplicity.

The genial hostess was on and off stage, trading the spotlight with Smith, who seemed the audience’s favorite from the adoring ovations his every appearance generated, and Point of Grace, singing for the first time as a trio. (Expectant-mom Terry Jones left the tour to fly home to get ready to deliver.) The three Graces shone when they applied their glimmering high harmonies to Chris Eaton’s “When Love Came Down.”

The stage was framed with sweeping curtains and a backdrop screen that provided wintry images, creating the effect of a variety show in a ‘40s ballroom.

Not to get caught up in such spirit, you’d have to be a Grinch.