You know the big day is hot on your heels when NBC begins its heavy rotation of “It’s A Wonderful Life” (7 p.m., NBC). Jimmy Stewart stars in the 1946 Frank Capra-directed favorite as George Bailey, the small-town banker who learns just how much he means to his neighbors and loved ones when he’s given a vision of what their lives would be like without him.

Among the more haunting and effective moments in the film shows how Bailey’s neighborly small town has been transformed into a tacky honky-tonk because the forces of shortsighted greed – personified by the Scrooge-like Harry F. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) – have been allowed to triumph in his absence.

I’ll allow the usual gang of moralists to judge the current state of television and even Christmas entertainment, but it’s hard not to wonder whether we all live in Pottersville now.

And maybe that’s where viewers would rather live. How else do you explain the number of shows that celebrate the values of casinos, gambling, tattoo parlors, bail bondsmen, bounty hunters, highway chase footage, the arrest of drunk-and-disorderly suspects and the tabloid exploits of a steady parade of sleazy celebrities and other intoxicated exhibitionists?

¢ Further proof of our topsy-turvy holiday perspective can be found on “The Ghost Whisperer” (7 p.m., CBS). In this Christmas-themed episode, Melinda counsels a confused spirit who believes he is Santa Claus and has lost the true meaning of Christmas. And it’s Melinda’s job to ring his bell and send him “into the light.”

I know we’re not supposed to question the “logic” of a series about a knockout poltergeist therapist, but this plot shows how far we’ve reversed the narrative polarity of the average ghost story.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I thought ghosts had two basic functions: a) to scare us, and b) to bring us important truths from the beyond. In “A Christmas Carol,” Marley’s ghost accomplished both tasks rather efficiently. He rattled Scrooge’s chains (by rattling his own) and then pointed the doomed cheapskate toward redemption (by way of three additional hauntings).

In the cockeyed caravan of “The Ghost Whisperer,” it’s Melinda who has the wisdom and who helps the ghosts. These spirits aren’t so much spectral ambassadors of eternal truth as wounded puppies that need a thorn pulled from their iddy-biddy paws.

That’s just crazy. Scrooge doesn’t “help” Marley deal with his chains; Marley has come to save Scrooge. George Bailey may help Clarence the Angel earn his wings in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but there’s no doubt about who is imparting wisdom and who is receiving it.

There is a certain spiritual hubris and egotism about this reversal of fortune-telling. It strikes me as arrogant to assume that we the living have much to teach the dead (or the ghostly, or the angelic, etc.). And when the fount of wisdom is Jennifer Love Hewitt, that’s a scary thought indeed.

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ Catt Sadler hosts “Holiday with the Stars” (5 p.m., E!).

¢ The first seven episodes of the 2002 series “Firefly” (6 p.m. to 2 a.m, Sci Fi) unfold in a minimarathon.

¢ Marin entertains a mystery guest “Men in Trees” (7 p.m., ABC).

¢ Sir Roger Moore hosts the 2007 World Magic Awards (7 p.m., My Network).

¢ A widow must take charge of her unruly dog a year after the death of their pack leader on “The Dog Whisperer” (7 p.m., National Geographic).

¢ Lone returns to an island in mourning and Cha Cha goes missing on “Orangutan Island” (7 p.m., Animal Planet).

¢ An assassin targets Josef on “Moonlight” (8 p.m., CBS).

¢ Multiple murders on the subway on “The Women’s Murder Club” (8 p.m., ABC).