For the second straight week, an “American Idol” contestant gets her own Christmas Special. “Jennifer Hudson: I’ll Be Home for Christmas” (7 p.m., ABC) features the Oscar winner singing holiday favorites and a duet with crooner Michael Buble.
• For the second straight year, Nick Lachey hosts “The Sing-Off” (7 p.m., NBC), a four-night competition between a cappella groups from across the country. This year’s judges include Ben Folds, Shawn Stockman and Nicole Scherzinger.
• Christmas brings mixed messages every year. Is it about faith? Family? Or shopping? Every year, Charlie Brown and Linus tell us it’s about more than tinsel. The Grinch discovers year after year that maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. “Maybe Christmas ... perhaps ... means a little bit more!” On the other hand, these heart-warmers come gift-wrapped with ads from Target, the Gap, Wal-Mart, etc.
Produced by Morgan Spurlock, the documentary “What Would Jesus Buy?” (8 p.m., Sundance) follows performance artist and activist Bill Taken, known as the Rev. Billy, the founder of the Church of Stop Shopping. He and his enthusiastic gospel choir visit malls across America to preach and sing to busy shoppers about their lost priorities and the coming of the “Shopocalypse.”
While consumers appear amused and occasionally enlightened by his antics, most mall security guards consider him a threat. We get to see Billy arrested, or threatened with arrest, from Times Square to Minnesota’s Mall of America to Disneyland’s Main Street USA.
Both light-hearted and deadly serious, “Jesus” beseeches viewers to at least think about their consumerism and to support small Main Street stores over faceless corporate entities. Billy has been banned from every Starbucks in California.
It also decries the disappearance of the public forum for dissent and contrary ideas, particularly those that challenge corporations.
The film observes that many people live in places without sidewalks or town squares, where we are forced to drive from a private home to a private mall, a place where the free expression of First Amendment rights is considered trespassing. And the Rev. Billy has the arrest record to prove it.
• The CW wipes the schedule clean for the week to broadcast two repeat episodes of “The Vampire Diaries” (7 p.m. and 8 p.m.) every night this week.
Tonight’s other highlights
• A teen collapses during a holiday pageant on “House” (8 p.m., Fox). Lori Petty (“Point Break”) guest stars.
• San Francisco hosts Arizona on “Monday Night Football” (7 p.m., ESPN).
• “The Real Jesus” (7 p.m., National Geographic) evaluates theories about his “missing” years.
• A farmer threatens to make an explosive statement on “Lie to Me” (8 p.m., Fox), the fall finale of the series.
• Delko returns on “CSI: Miami” (9 p.m., CBS).
• Castle places a friendly wager on “Castle” (9 p.m., ABC).
• A panel of celebrities evaluate various charity proposals on “Bank of Hollywood” (9 p.m., E!).
• A woman prepares to go to prison for the murder of a husband who abused her for 19 years in the 2009 documentary “Every F--ing Day of My Life” (9 p.m., HBO).
Cult choice
Plane crash survivors discover an enchanted Himalayan kingdom in the 1937 fantasy “Lost Horizon” (8:30 p.m., TCM).
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