Who says you have to settle for frozen turkey, boxed stuffing and canned cranberry sauce for Christmas dinner? A country as diverse as ours should have millions of favorite holiday recipes, and “Taste of America” (7 p.m., Travel) host Mark DeCarlo spends his one-hour holiday special trying to find them.

DeCarlo begins in Carver, Mass., where he learns the secrets of cranberry harvesting and how to make a traditional cranberry sauce. Then it’s on to Cajun country, Shreveport, La., to sample turducken, a trendy holiday treat with its roots in medieval food preparation. As the name implies, turducken is a chicken stuffed into a duck that is in turn stuffed into a turkey with lots of stuffing. And, if all goes well, it will be stuffed into a person at Christmas dinner.

De Carlo’s gourmet road tour takes him to West Virginia to learn the secrets of gingerbread; to California, land of latkes; and on to a Trappist monastery in Kentucky, where the contemplative life includes the preparation of fruitcakes. Heavy stuff, indeed.

De Carlo wraps things up with a visit to his aunt in Chicago. And what’s a chef to prepare after a cross-country eating binge? His favorite Christmas meal – stuffed calamari.

Other highlights

¢ A cynical TV producer (Patricia Heaton) becomes part of a media circus hunting down a boy who doubts Santa in the convoluted holiday romance fantasy “A Town Without Christmas” (6 p.m., Lifetime).

¢ A trip to a fallout shelter leads to a quarantine on “Bones” (7 p.m., Fox).

¢ Lorelai remains coy about the big day on “Gilmore Girls” (7 p.m., WB).

¢ “The Amazing Race Family Edition” (8 p.m., CBS) wraps up with a two-hour finale.

¢ A dangerous day at the races on “House” (8 p.m., Fox).

¢ Joy’s wedding, ruined and redeemed on “My Name is Earl” (8:30 p.m., NBC).

¢ The speaker horns in on the veep choice on “Commander in Chief” (8 p.m., ABC).

¢ “Seoul Train” on “Independent Lens” (9 p.m., PBS) looks at the flow of North Korean refugees to the south.

¢ Credit card merry-go-round on “Boston Legal” (9 p.m., ABC).