BY CLIF GARBODEN

CHRISTMAS 25

5:30 (6) Basketball. The Dallas Mavericks versus the Sacramento Kings.

8:30 (6) Basketball. The Houston Rockets versus the Los Angeles Lakers.

9:00 (2) Marvin Hamlisch’s Salute to the Troops. Christ is born! Kill an Iraqi! (Until 10 p.m.)

BOXING DAY 26

9:00 (10) Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (movie). Jim Carrey made a fool of himself in this 1994 comedy about a private eye tracking down a missing football mascot. He also made a lot of money. With Courteney Cox and Sean Young. (Until 11 p.m.)

SATURDAY 27

1:30 (12) Football. The Pats versus the Buffalo Bills.

5:00 (64) Football. The Seattle Seahawks versus the San Francisco 49ers.

6:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: The Forsyte Saga, part one. Repeated from last week. A replay of last year’s remake of John Galsworthy’s Victorian saga of life among the much-too-rich in London. This reprise is designed to lure new fans to the upcoming The Forsyte Saga, Series 2 that will show up on PBS in February. (Until 8 p.m.)

7:00 (6) The Sound of Music (movie). "Never again," we shouted. And what good did that do? Another generation of television viewers is about to be infected by this sappy 1965 saga about the Trapp family’s harrowing escape from Nazi clutches. It didn’t actually happen, but no matter. Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer make it across the border just in time. Actually, on ABC it takes them four hours (including commercials). (Until 11 p.m.)

8:00 (2) The Washington Opera Celebration. An April 2003 concert put together by Washington Opera artistic director Plácido Domingo, who appears with Denyce Graves, Three Mo’ Tenors, soprano Veronica Villarroel, bass Rene Pape, tenor John Matz, Russian tenor Daniil Shtoda, Georgian baritone Lado Ataneli, Russian soprano Tatiana Pavlovskaya, and members of the Washington Opera’s Young Artist Program of the Americas. To be repeated on Sunday at 4:30 p.m. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

9:30 (2) Great Performances: Berlin Philharmonic Europakonzert: From Lisbon. To be specific, from the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos monastery. Pierre Boulez conducts the boys from Berlin in Debussy’s Fêtes, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20, with Maria João Pires, and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. To be repeated on Sunday at 3 p.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

SUNDAY 28

1:00 (12) Football. The New York Jets versus the Miami Dolphins.

1:00 (64) Football. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers versus the Tennessee Titans.

4:15 (12) Football. The Denver Broncos versus the Green Bay Packers.

5:50 (44) The Yearling (movie). The damn deer dies, okay. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s cruel joke upon the youth of America — starring Gregory Peck, Jane Wyman, and Claude Jarman Jr. — presumably teaches kids to live with sacrifice as a necessity of adulthood. Screw that. Screw Marjorie Rawlings. The deer could have been adopted by a nice family that didn’t have cash crops growing in the yard, and the kid could have gone to visit on weekends. This crap came out in 1946, when the idea of having your love die was still in WW2 vogue. To be repeated on New Year’s Eve at 8 p.m. (Until 8 p.m.)

6:00 (2) Jack Paar: Smart TV. Repeated from last week. Clips from Paar’s 1957-’65 late-night show with guests Robert Kennedy, Fidel Castro, and Muhammad Ali, and more. (Until 7 p.m.)

8:00 (44) The Court Jester (movie). A 1956 comedy with Danny Kaye starring as a "phony court jester." Hey, what does it take to be an authentic court jester? Do they have licenses? With Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, and Angela Lansbury. To be repeated on New Year’s Eve at 10:10 p.m. (Until 9:40 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Masterpiece Theatre: The Forsyte Saga, part two. Irene and Bosinney carry on under the disapproving eye of Soames. Damian Lewis stars. (Until 10 p.m.)

9:00 (6) Dreamkeeper (movie), part one. A modern Native American teen and his grandfather set out on a journey to a pan-tribal ceremony in New Mexico, a trip that gives them a chance to relive their heritage and history as the victims of genocide. To be concluded on Monday, starting at 9 p.m. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:40 (44) Butterfield 8 (movie). Hooker Liz Taylor swoons for Laurence Harvey and decides to reform. Also starring Eddie Fisher. This was quite the scandalous release in 1960 (though modern viewers will never understand why), and it’s not bad for what it is — which is a period piece. Harvey’s character, for example, is named Weston Liggett, the sort of name that stopped showing up in scripts by 1970. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Classic Drama Encores: Awake and Sing! A 1972 TV production of Clifford Odets’s 1935 Broadway drama about a disabled war vet named Moe Axelrod (played by Walter Matthau) who boards with a family of Bronx Jews during the Depression. And depression is the primary theme here. (Until midnight.)

11:30 (44) Fiesta in the Sky. They had to show this documentary about hot-air ballooning at least one more time before the new year. "Where," said the syphilitic Frenchman, "is the fiesta?" ("Où est le fiesta?") "Look up and behold," answered the aged prophet. The mailman arrived and swallowed his hat. The prophet dropped dead and the Frenchman ascended in his stead. (Until midnight.)

MONDAY 29

8:00 (44) Globe Trekker: New York City Guide. Trekker Ian Wright visits NYC and mingles with the neighborhood natives. (Until 9 p.m.)

9:00 (2) Rod Serling: Submitted for Your Approval. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. Rod Serling, fledgling writer, was in New York when commercial television was born. And since the medium was new, the corporate types who programmed TV had yet to learn that it was supposed to be crap. Enter Rod, who wrote hard-hitting social-morality dramas about the evils of big business. Work fell off when the network execs began to recognize themselves in his scripts, so he turned to sci-fi and invented the original Twilight Zone, with showcased an incredible number of stars-to-be (before they were) and just never gets old. Serling was one of the good guys; he wouldn’t get through the door of today’s broadcast networks. This show tells his little-told story and features lots of clips from his early teleplays. (He holds the record for the most Emmys won for dramatic writing.) (Until 10:30 p.m.)

9:00 (6) Dreamkeeper (movie), part two. The conclusion. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Journey of Man. Geneticist Spencer Wells believes that all of us can be traced back to a single human who lived in Africa about 60,000 years ago. We’ll call her Bernice. To prove his point via DNA evidence, Wells hits every populated continent on earth to sample her descendants. (Until 11 p.m.)

10:30 (2) Sing! An Oscar–nominated documentary about the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, which takes ostensibly normal kids and turns them into real choristers. (Until 11 p.m.)

TUESDAY 30

7:30 (2) La Plaza: Mango Blue. That’s a band. Fans of Channel 44 have seen performance clips from this show dozens of times as fillers between 50-minute dramas and the top of the hour. Cool music, though. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Divine Magic: The World of the Supernatural: Mythical Monsters, The Power of Voodoo, and Prophecy. A three-part special, narrated by Stephen Rea, that scours the globe and investigates ancient myths, legends, and other things people believe but don’t understand. The first hour considers monsters (like the ones in Where the Wild Things Are, not the kind in Washington). In part two, voodoo priestess Ann Brache introduces us to the spooky world view subscribed to by 50 million people you don’t know. And finally, we go behind the scenes, as it were, with Nostradamus, the prophet of prophets who once wrote, "When the second pope is assassinated, the Antichrist will begin his European campaign. The prime minister of Britain and the US president will go into consultation over the matter." Except he didn’t write exactly that, and a lot has been gained in the translation. (Until 11 p.m.)

9:00 (44) Independent Lens: Get the Fire! Young Mormon Missionaries Abroad. The Mormons, in addition to owning Utah and winking at multiple wives, are one of the faiths that feel it’s okay to pester non-believers. To that end, all real Mormons spend time in their young-adulthood wandering the globe looking for somebody to hype on the contents of the Plates of Nephi. This film follows two such proselytizers for 22 months through Germany. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (44) Independent Lens: Eroica! A profile of the all-girl chamber-music trio — cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio, pianist Erika Nickrenz, and violinist Adela Peña — as they tour the world doing shows and juggle their personal lives. The three hooked up at Juilliard, but they knew one another as prodigies when they were much younger. (Until 11 p.m.)

NEW YEAR’S EVE 31

2:00 (12) Football. Minnesota versus Oregon in the Sun Bowl.

8:00 (2) Live from Lincoln Center: New York Philharmonic New Year’s Eve Gala. Andre Davis takes the podium before the New York Phil and soprano Reneé Fleming guests. Music by which to ring in the New Year includes Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Ravel’s Shéhérazade, with Renée, the Overture to Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers, and selections from Bizet’s Carmen, with Renée again. To be repeated tonight at midnight. (Until 10 p.m.)

10:00 (2) Great Performances: 30th Anniversary Gala: A Celebration in Song. Highlight clips from three decades of GP shows. Relive such magic moments as Natalie Cole singing "Unforgettable" with Nat; Elaine Paige doing "Memory" from Cats (from memory); Peter, Paul and Mary reminding us that "The Times They Are A-Changin’ "; but probably nothing involving Josh Groban. (Until 11:30 p.m.)

10:00 (6) Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2004. The first installment runs until 11 p.m. The party picks up again at 11:35 p.m. (Until 2:05 a.m.)

NEW YEAR’S DAY 1

12:30 (10) Football. West Virginia versus Maryland in the Sun Bowl.

1:00 (6) Football. Purdue versus Georgia in the Capitol One Bowl.

1:00 (44) Globe Trekker Marathon. In order we retrace the following treks: The American Rockies (Trekker Ian); Baja, California (at 2 p.m. with Trekker Ian); Southern Mexico (at 3 p.m. with Trekker Ian); New York City Guide (at 4 p.m. with Trekker Ian); Cuba and Haiti (at 5 p.m. with Trekker Ian); Northern Spain (at 6 p.m. with Trekker Shilpa); South of France (at 7 p.m. with Trekker Christina); North India: Varanasi and the Himalaya (at 8 p.m. with Trekker Andrew); The Arab Gulf States (at 9 p.m. with Trekker Megan); and Beijing City Guide (at 10 p.m. with Trekker Megan). What! No Trekker Justine?! (Until 11 p.m.)

4:30 (6) Football. USC versus Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

7:30 (2) Basic Black: Bobby McFerrin’s Master Class. Happy Bobby teaches us to groove. (Until 8 p.m.)

8:00 (2) Great Performances: From Vienna: The New Year’s Celebration 2004. Riccardo Muti conducts the Vienna Phil the usual Strauss waltzes and polkas. Plus a tour of the Albrecht Dürer exhibit at Albertina Museum. (Until 9:30 p.m.)

8:30 (6) Football. Miami versus Florida State in the Orange Bowl.