The Yule Log, a beloved New York television tradition, returns on Christmas morning
Sitting around the television set on Christmas morning watching an image of a burning fireplace might sound, at first, like sitting around the television set on the Fourth of July watching a video of your grass growing.
And maybe to some of the world it does sound like that.
To New Yorkers, it sounds like the Yule Log.
And sure enough, the Yule Log returns Christmas morning, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., marking its 45th anniversary on Ch. 11.
It’s being carried in a number of other cities as well these days, but it’s still New York’s Log, and darn it, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas in New York without it.
In those 45 years, moreover, it’s built up a backstory that goes beyond easy-listening holiday music played over a video loop of a bright warm fire.
It’s a story that involves a courageous television programmer, a tragically singed Oriental rug, a dozen years in the wilderness, a corporate epiphany triggered by Sept. 11, an onslaught of imitators, a discarded “Honeymooners” film canister and the mysterious absence of Bing Crosby.