By Luaine Lee, Tribune News Service (TNS)

As holiday deadlines approach, folks are frantically checking off their gift list, replacing burned-out Christmas bulbs and trying to keep the cat out of the tree. But not to worry. Television has plans to ease those last-minute panic attacks.

With everything from kiddie delights to grown-up romances, they are unremittingly on the job.

TBS again offers its 24-hour “A Christmas Story” marathon starting at 8 p.m. Eastern on Christmas Eve. Fans are hotly waiting to see if Ralphie finally gets his Red Ryder BB gun with a compass in the stock and a sundial.

Hulu’s on the job with the inspiring five-parter “Dear Santa, the Series,” about the U.S. Postal Service’s program in which young letter writers pen their Christmas wishes to Santa, and volunteer “elves” do their best to fulfill them. The USPS program has been going on for 112 years and shows no sign of stopping. And, once again, Will Farrell’s enormous “Elf,” who traipses to New York where he finds things he did not expect, is streaming on Hulu.

Will Ferrell as Buddy in “Elf.” (Handout/TNS)

The Grinch will prove insufferable all over the place including Peacock+, Sling and Prime Video (to rent). He’ll land on NBC Christmas Day. This is the original animated version of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” — by far the best incarnation of the Dr. Seuss classic.

Adults are not forgotten: Barry Manilow brings his evergreens to NBC with “Barry Manilow’s a Very Barry Christmas” on Thursday at 10 p.m. And PBS will offer “Joy — Christmas with the (Mormon) Tabernacle Choir” at 8 p.m. What’s more, viewers can get in the groove with a new iteration of Handel’s “Messiah” with “Too Hot to Handel: the Gospel Messiah” at 9:30, both on Tuesday.

“Jeff Dunham’s Scrooged-Up Holiday Special.” (Todd Rosenberg Photography/TNS)

Jeff Dunham and his eternally grumpy puppet, Walter, are discoursing on Prime Video with “Jeff Dunham’s Scrooged-Up Holiday Special,” and Prime indulges British comedian Jack Whitehall, who’s trying to get out of Dodge and make it back to the U.K.

“Jack in Time for Christmas” — now on Prime — is a partially scripted show and pretty funny. All his efforts are aided by the likes of Michael Bublé, Dave Bautista, Rebel Wilson and Jimmy Fallon.

And on Christmas Day the fashionable new Dr. Who, played Ncuti Gatwa, arrives with his special “Joy to the World” on Disney+ at 12:10 p.m.

Lifetime adds a little hot spice to the Christmas rom-com with “A Carpenter Christmas Romance” premiering Saturday at 8 p.m. Mitchell Slagger (sexy and shirtless) and Sasha Pieterse costar in this saucy flick.

On Friday, “Josh Groban & Friends Go Home for the Holidays” celebrates adoptions and the season in one grand display via CBS. Aiding Groban are luminaries like Jennifer Hudson, James Bay, Tori Kelly and The War and Treaty. It’s a unique mix of music, stories and comedy and features a live adoption on stage.

“Klaus” is a worthy animated feature about a shy toymaker who teams up with a self-centered postman to deliver toys to children in the middle of the night. (Luaine Scheliga/TNS)

“Klaus” is a worthy animated feature about a shy toymaker who teams up with a self-centered postman to deliver toys to children in the middle of the night. It’s a new take on the “Father Christmas” theme and stars J.K. Simmons as the voice of the toymaker. The movie, which earned an Oscar nomination, streams on Netflix.

On Sunday everybody’s favorite towering matriarch, Madea, arrives on the CW with “Tyler Perry’s a Medea Christmas.” Here Madea (Perry) and a friend trek to a rural town for a Yuletide visit only to be shocked by the goings-on in this little burgh. Costarring are the impressive Anna Maria Horsford, Kathy Najimy and Lisa Whelchel.

Hulu is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Fox cartoon series “Family Guy” with “Family Guy: Holiday Special,” starring the usual suspects: Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein and Mila Kunis.

For those nostalgic for the old days, MeTV presents a week of vintage sitcoms. On Sunday you’ll find an episode of “Happy Days,” titled “All I Want for Christmas,” followed by “Snoopy Come Home,” “The Love Boat’s,” “Santa. Santa, Santa/Another Dog Gone,” and four “All in the Family” chapters devoted to the holidays.

From left, Karen Fairchild, Kate Hudson, Kimberly Schlapman, Kelsea Ballerini in ” Little Big Town’s Christmas at the Opry.” (Ralph Bavaro/NBC)

Peacock+ sparkles with the special “Little Big Town’s Christmas at the Opry,” showcasing guests like Sheryl Crow, Kirk Franklin, Kelsea Ballerini and Kate Hudson on tap, streaming now.

Husband-wife team Alexa and Carlos PenaVega costar in Great American Family’s original movie “Get Him Back for Christmas,” running all this week.

Sabrina Carpenter makes a holiday splash with “A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter,” streaming on Netflix. Special guests on this entry include Shania Twain, Quinta Brunson, Cara Delevingne, Sean Astin and Jillian Bells.

“A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter.” Sabrina Carpenter at the Sunset Gower Studios in Los Angeles. (Parrish Lewis/Netflix/TNS)

It looks like they’re still having babies over at PBS’ “Call the Midwife,” and the series will honor the yuletide season with a “Holiday Special” on Christmas Day at 8 p.m.

Clint Eastwood at it again

Clint Eastwood is still hot on the job again with a new film, “Juror #2,” streaming on Max Friday. The show stars Nicholas Hoult as one of the jurors on a murder trial who struggles with a moral dilemma.

Costarring is Toni Collette, who seems to be in everything lately. We’ve seen the Australian actress in projects like “Knives Out,” “Stowaway,” “Nightmare Alley,” “Pieces of Her” and “The Staircase.”

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She tells me, “I was a loud little girl – all singing, all dancing, all annoying. I come from a very blue-collar working class, grounded, no-BS kind of a family, which I’m very thankful for because I don’t buy into what I possibly could buy into. I was a little bit of a clown — always performing, putting on shows in the neighborhood; also going through the bookworm phases,” she says.

“Acting started with dancing. I used to do dance lessons and got into singing, musicals, and that led to straight acting. That was it. I’d been doing musicals with a youth theater group while I was in school, and then I started doing some plays with them, and I realized that was what I wanted to do. And I left school at the age of 16, which is something that in retrospect I would never make that decision now. But I think I was so in love with what I had discovered and just felt like it was a rush and I just kind of fell into it.”

Samantha Morton stars in sci-fi flick

Sweet little Samantha Morton is starring in yet another dystopian sci-fi movie depicting our soon-to-be horrible future. Called “1973,” opening in theaters on Dec. 27, it’s reckoning not too far in advance, and has some axes to grind.

Morton, who’s starred in projects like “Sweet and Lowdown” with Woody Allen and “The Serpent Queen,” tells me, “Other than being a mother and a friend and partner, acting is what I’m good at. It’s what I know how to do. It’s what I’m passionate about. It’s my life, it’s my breath. If I didn’t do it, I’d go slightly bonkers, I think.”

It was a teacher who first spotted Morton’s talent. “The teacher said to me I should consider doing drama, and so I went to some actors school that was very advanced in its training — very, very heavy on method and improvisation and comedy improvisation. And I ended up getting a job at the World Court Theatre when I was 16 and I’ve not stopped. I’m very lucky.”

‘Friends’ spawns game show

Super fans just won’t let “Friends” die. So Max has created a new quiz show to exploit those lovers of the long-running sitcom. Called “Fast Friends,” the series features teams that compete to see who knows the most about the long running comedy.

“Fast Friends’” debuts on Thursday. New episodes of the four-part game show will debut subsequent Thursdays. Filmed on the real sets that once were populated by Joey and Chandler and Rachel and Monica, the quizzer’s host is comic Whitney Cummings.

Cummings, who started as a standup, has exploited various facets of her talent on TV including two sitcoms (one in which she starred), writing, producing, and TV comedy specials.

Recalling her days on the road, Cummings says, “I think the traveling is the hardest part. The being on stage is the reward. It’s just what you have to go through to get there. One year I did more than 80 cities. And so it’s like traveling and airport security, and hotel, and you spend all day getting there. And then you get there at 8 o’clock and you get to sort of be onstage for an hour, and that’s the reward. But it’s to get a lot of stage time and to have to tour, I think that’s the most exhausting.”

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