A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter

I am a bit of an old soul and never get into new musical artists but I was impressed with the strong talent and lovely voice Sabrina has. She outshines all her guest performers by miles and shows how some of them can't sing a basic song. But Sabrina's wit, charisma, humour and smile is contagious. It should get viewers smiling and easily into a nonsense mood for the holidays. Also kudos to her for taking on this special as there could be fears it would bomb. My only suggestion would have been to include a story to make it more fun for viewers to follow along and have a final song session with all the musical acts. Overall harmless and fun treat.

I actually went into this new Christmas special with a very open mind but I have to say that it was unfortunately a cringey mess and very underwhelming overall. The different guests were probably the best part of the special, but Sabrina's continual reliance on the same corny innuendos and unoriginal shtick becomes boring and uninteresting very quickly. There's a heavy laugh track in the skits too that is distracting and there's also loud backing vocals in the musical numbers that are obvious. Overall everything feels very contrived and ultimately uninspiring. I wouldn't even call this camp, just cringe and corny. I had seen a comment saying that Sabrina is the pop equivalent of the "hawk tuah" girl and cashing in on a viral shtick. It ultimately just isn't that entertaining and feels very vapid. I wouldn't recommend this special.

Sabrina Carpenter may well be on her way to Ariana Grande-like status in the pop music scene. The only reason she isn't there already is because she got trapped in some bad Disney music contracts that forced her to make middling, family-friendly pop for a number of years. Now, freed to pursue her own pursuits, Sabrina leans into that tongue-in-cheek, double entendre brand with this Nonsense Christmas special.

Basically, Nonsense Christmas is a collection of 6-7 Sabrina tunes (some of them duets, like with Shania Twain or Chappell Roan, amongst others), with comedy skits interspersed between the musical set pieces.

Because Sabrina's whole image is so "cringe", it is hard to give an event like this the full 10/10 star treatment. Granted, I don't get too fussed about it because she unapologetically leans into that image, but at times it will have you rolling your eyes as opposed to laughing out loud.

How can Carpenter largely get away with this? Because she's got the pipes. Her Fruitcake Christmas mini-album is an absolute holiday masterpiece, and her other tunes of late have rocketed to the top of all charts. Sabrina can really sing, and that's how (at least for the moment) she can get away with the dirty puns and raunchy-if-fun persona--because the vocals always back it up.

Overall, I enjoyed this Nonsense Christmas special. Nothing that will go down in the annals of holiday music specials, to be sure, but fun enough in that it knows exactly what it wants to be--Sabrina's pristine vocals mixed with cringy humor--and executes it perfectly.

I enjoyed but know for a fact I won't rewatch. When I think of a Christmas Special it's something you want to watch time and time again when the holidays come around. This is something that feels like an SNL segment, one off. It is missing something and I spent the whole special looking for it. Also the fact that Chappell Roan's end "blooper" is her complaining that the outfit she's in is straight is so weird to me when it's Sabrina's special and clearly what she wanted them to wear. The length of the special was perfect with little segments and showing us the behind the scenes of the shots as it's being shot. But again, it was just missing something.

10/10. No notes. Thank you Sabrina for bringing us all a holiday tradition of snuggling up by the fire and watching this masterpiece of a special. Actress Sabrina is finally back as well!!! We missed her so dearly. (Get her back on SNL btw, wth are we doing???) Her vocals, outfits, skits, jokes, and lineup was all so incredibly amazing. She has done it yet again, making hit after hit. I'm in shock that she played Cindy Lou Who? It sounds even more incredible live with the piano and violins. Will be watching many more times in the next few days, that's for sure. I know for sure that everybody who watched this had the best 50mins of their year. Thank you to the singer, actress, comedian, producer, dancer, Sabrina Carpenter!!