White Christmas

Producers of "Grease" announced that their 1950s-era musical will close Jan. 4, the ninth Broadway show scheduled to fold next month. The revival will have played 554 performances, compared with 3,388 for the original 1972 show. The new version, which like the original is set in and around the fictional Rydell High School, attracted national attention by casting its leads from a TV program. Seven Broadway shows will close on Jan. 4 alone, including "Young Frankenstein," "Hairspray," "Boeing-Boeing," "13" and holiday engagements of "White Christmas" and "Slava's Snowshow."

What would Christmas be without Christmas Jews? I'm not thinking of the originals, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but of their distinguished musical co-religionists: Irving ("White Christmas") Berlin, Mel "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire" Torme and the Brooklyn trinity of Streisand, Diamond and Manilow.

As the Beach Boys sang, "Christmas comes this time each year," and so does the wall-to-wall holiday music at KOST-FM (103.5). Friday at 8:30 a.m. the station's "Sounds of the Season" began with Barry Manilow's version of "White Christmas," and the theme will continue through Dec. 25. KOST, which plays holiday songs from contemporary artists as well as classics by Gene Autry, Andy Williams and others, began its tradition of nonstop seasonal music in 2001.

Despite generally glowing reviews, especially for Angelina Jolie's performance, "A Mighty Heart" tanked at the box office when it was released in June, making less than $10 million in a relatively wide release of 1,355 theaters. "A Mighty Heart," though, is the type of small, intimate drama that often finds its audience on DVD. It arrives in that format on Tuesday.

Outside the tiny mess hall, a handwritten sign proclaims in a spidery scrawl: "Knight's Den lunch feast. Try the eggnog tonight. (The rest is just Army chow.) Merry Christmas." In this overlooked corner of the Green Zone, troops from Michigan's National Guard celebrated Christmas Eve on Saturday. From daybreak, the soldiers toiled to decorate the spartan hall, open to the 146 "Knights" who are spending the holidays in Iraq.

Ah, holiday gift-giving. The fruitcake weighty enough for a doorstop, that plastic singing fish, the Chia Pet, that little treasure at the bottom of the stocking.... Or, the musical equivalent: "Spirit of Christmas," a touring extravaganza at the Kodak Theatre: sweet, tacky and, occasionally, just what you wished it would be. First staged in London and aimed at all ages, this variety show, with retro echoes of cheesy 1970s TV specials, falls in the Merry Christmas, not the Happy Holidays, camp.

A great radio station knows its audience and where to lead it, or at least how to show it a good time. KDLD /KDLE-FM, better known as Indie 103.1, is the local upstart challenger to modern-rock leader KROQ-FM, but its holiday concert Friday at the Shrine was no superstar fest on the level of Almost Acoustic Christmas. It was more like the station: smaller, quirkier and truer to its indie ethos, with urgent sets by inspired young bands Giant Drag and the Like.

RANDOM thoughts, while pulling tinsel from my teeth and wrestling brandy away from an underage beagle: All hours are happy hours. Every place is a Peyton Place. When I grow up, I want to be a major stockholder. If a dog's life is so bad, how come we're the ones following him around with scoopy bags? Ingenue of the year: Keira Knightley. Ingenue of the year runner-up: the Pontiac Solstice. In a few years, we're gonna look back at blogs and just laugh. Website of the day: JiWire, www.

ROCK, pop, folk, jazz, hip-hop even quasi-classical are among this year's plethora of holiday-themed releases. Here's a sampling: *** Anita Baker, "Christmas Fantasy" (Blue Note). This is one for a cold winter night in front of the fire, and Baker supplies the spark. Her burnished vocals heat up the ballads and put plenty of sass in the bouncier tunes. *** Brave Combo, "Holidays" (Rounder). This multiple Grammy-winning Texas combo's 1988 album "It's Christmas, Man!"