December 21, 2007 - The "Late Show" Christmas Tree Meatball Will be Knocked Down This Year - Guaranteed

David Letterman won't be hosting a new annual Christmas installment of his CBS Late Show this year - but he'll be doing the next best thing. On Christmas night, his Worldwide Pants company has decided to repeat last year's CBS special. That keeps the tradition going, if with a strike-affected asterisk.

Actress Cate Blanchett is one guest in this December 2006 repeat, but the guests who really matter are the ones carrying on Letterman's late-night Christmas cheer. Namely, Darlene Love singing "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," which she's done since first performing it on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman 21 years ago, and Jay Thomas, whose toss-the-football-at-the-tree and tell-the-Lone-Ranger-story antics are less tenured, but just as enjoyable.

Monday night is pre-empted by CBS for Christmas Eve programming, so if Letterman, at this point, were to share the Love (and the Thomas), it would have to be Christmas night. And with a Writers Guild of America agreement not yet fully in place, the only options were a) select and broadcast a Christmas-themed rerun, or b) let the entire annual tradition slide.

In this particular multiple-choice quiz, Letterman made the right move. A one-year-old rerun is better than nothing.

Besides, if The Simpsons can show its annual Treehouse of Horror Fox specials on the Sunday after Halloween, maybe Letterman can mount a fresh Christmas special sometime before Lincoln's birthday.

But I'm not greedy. I'm happy, after begging for a gift of this sort, to be handed one just in time for Christmas.