Christmas time all the time on TV

It seems there are so many Christmas shows on television now that I end up hardly watching any of them.

I'm not being a Grinch. I'm glad there are a lot of holiday shows, compared to the usual crap on TV. But do we really need "The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause"?

"A Boyfriend for Christmas"??

"Battle of the Bulbs"???

"Hercules Saves Christmas"????

"Three Wise Women"????? Wow, it's like the Hallmark Channel is just setting ol' Haugen up to write something that would get him in trouble.

I counted on a television schedule, and starting Dec. 1 there were about 20 Christmas shows per day for the first three weeks of December, with about three days of 50 shows. That was just the warm-up for the big day, Christmas Eve. I might be off by one or two, but by my count there are 103 shows that day. But they counted "The Bishop's Wife" as a Christmas show. Really? I've never seen it, and probably never will, but, really?

Back when I was a kid, there was Charlie Brown, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman and maybe some Grinch show. That was it. And they weren't played on an endless loop on the Hallmark Channel because WE ONLY HAD THREE CHANNELS. Oh well, whatcha gonna do?

I will watch four Christmas shows now. The old faithful ...

"Christmas Vacation" - Nobody does Christmas like the Griswolds. Clark: "Can I refill your eggnog for you? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?"

"Elf" - Will Ferrell is just one of the funniest guys out there. "This place reminds me of Santa's Workshop! Except it smells like mushrooms and everyone looks like they want to hurt me."

"A Christmas Story" - So many great lines, but one of Santa's most memorable: "You'll shoot your eye out, kid."

Finally, my favorite Christmas movie (which they didn't even include on the Christmas show list): "Die Hard." Some people don't think of that as a Christmas show, but that's because some people don't think.

You can't beat ol' Hans Gruber, reading what McClane wrote on the dead terrorist's shirt: "Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho."

Or Argyle: "If this is their idea of Christmas, I gotta be here for New Year's."

Or me: If loving "Die Hard" on Christmas is wrong, I don't want to be right.