Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Nonsense Christmas With Sabrina Carpenter’ on Netflix, With Seasonal Songs And Sketches From Sabrina And Celeb Guests 

In A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter, now streaming on Netflix, you can expect Christmas classics, guest duets, goofy holiday sketches, and cheeky double-entendres inside every wrapped gift on the special’s “Recorded Live In Front of Studio Audience”-style stage. Sabrina Carpenter is the star of the show, of course, but don’t expect “Espresso,” or even her viral hit “Nonsense” – instead, Sabrina performs a few seasonal chestnuts with guests Chappell Roan, Shania Twain, Tyla, and Kali Uchs, appears in a few comedy bits that include notables like Kyle Mooney, Megan Stalter, Quinta Brunson, and Cara Delevingne, and generally hams it up, just in time for Christmas. “So if you’re hot and you’re young and you’re stocking’s well hung…by the chimney with care, it’s the most nonsense time of the year…”

A NONSENSE CHRISTMAS WITH SABRINA CARPENTER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: A close-up of all that Sabrina Carpenter hair as “Buy Me Presents” begins, from her Christmas-themed 2023 EP Fruitcake. The audience cheers as Sabrina, in red satin and black arm gloves, appears on a tiered rostrum to sing.

The Gist: Well, “sing.” A Nonsense Christmas isn’t live, and it’s not really a concert. As a holiday special, it’s not concerned with clarifying what is sung in the moment or what took a few takes to nail. (There are even bloopers at the very end.) But it’s all in good seasonal fun. “If you were a wise man, baby,” Sabrina coos from the stage during “Buy Me Presents,” “you’d drop every other ho ho ho and put me on top” – you get the idea. But she does, too. As she makes a cocktail in a stage setup similar to a sitcom, Sabrina’s intro ends and she welcomes South African pop singer Tyla for a rendition of “Very Special Christmas,” complete with a dance break. It’s kind of a whirlwind, to try and expect what’s next. But to camera, Sabrina says Netflix told her she could do whatever she wants, as long as she went viral.

This is the vibe of Nonsense Christmas – very self-aware, but also very season’s greetings. A sketch featuring Megan Stalter and Owen Thiele, plus Sean Astin in a Santa suit, gives way to Sabrina dueting on “Santa Baby” with Shania Twain, and for the following bit it’s back to the living room stage, where she sings an auto-tuned laugher of a jingle about a brother-in-law she kinda sorta doesn’t know. Even if Kyle Mooney didn’t appear in the sketch as her bro-in-law, it would still feel like something out of Saturday Night Live.

Nonsense Christmas also features Chappell Roan on a nice duet version of the Wham! classic “Last Christmas,” and gets some mileage out of people like Thiele, Mooney, and Cara Delevinge submitting ideas to Sabrina on potential outros to “Nonsense,” something she’s been switching up while out on the road, both as an Eras opener for Taylor Swift and on her own Short n’ Sweet tour. (Nonsense is directed by Sam Wrench, who also helmed the Eras concert film.) Kali Uchis stops by for duet version of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” Quinta Brunson and Nico Hiraga are funny in a sketch involving the spirits of “Ghosted” past, present, and future, and by the time we get to the final number – shocker, it’s “Nonsense” – Sabrina says she’s happy to have made her special such a fun experience for the whole family. Is that buzzing gift she was handed onstage a massager, or something else? Wink-wink.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? It’s not about Christmas, but Olivia Rodrigo: Guts World Tour is a damn good time, and features Chappell Roan, too. And the jokes-and-performance feel of Nonsense Christmas had us recalling a left-field holiday experiment out of the COVID era, The LCD Soundsystem Holiday Special.

Our Take: Actually, what Nonsense Christmas proves is that every singer, whether they’ve ever performed on SNL or not, should probably make their own broadly-minded holiday special, complete with jokes. With Sabrina Carpenter herself as its ringleader, Nonsense happily makes a pile of sly Xmas sex jokes, allows all kinds of nods to how improvisational it all ends up feeling – Megan Stalter from Hacks recovers well when her “Tickle Me Elmo” prop during a sketch takes matters into its own hands – and generally has a damn good time with itself. Which is a gift! Christmas specials are perfect vehicles for tradition, and that will never go out of style. This time of year, we need it. But the format is also inherently cheesy, and Sabrina leans into that notion with the participation of her willing troupe of guests. There are a few genuine LOLs, but mostly Nonsense plays to its strengths, which is the juice of celebrity interaction linked to easygoing Christmas season content, further differentiated by a few nicely-appointed Christmas season duets. It’s our contention that Sabrina Carpenter beat all of her professional peers to doing a special with exactly this casual, yet legitimately Christmas-y feel. If Netflix doesn’t sign her to do it again next year, with a new round of guests, they’re leaving money on the table. 

Sex and Skin: Nothing here, but for all of the winking seasonal double-entendres. And we mean all. “I trimmed my tree just for you, so keep my stocking filled.”

Parting Shot: [Sabrina Carpenter voice] “Well here we are my special at its ending/Love you all and thank you for attending/I can’t believe I kept it family-‘friendling’ – Merry Christmas, and to all, a good night. Love, Sabrina Claus.”

Sleeper Star: Shania Twain is a legend, and she’s immediately the star of both the sketch she appears in for Nonsense Christmas, and during the duet on “Santa Baby.” Even Sabrina is starstruck. “I can’t believe you’re here!”

Most Pilot-y Line: Early on, Sabrina Carpenter gives us a little welcome to her own personal musical comedy holiday special. “Welcome to A Nonsense Christmas. You could’ve been anywhere tonight, spending time with family, helping the less fortunate, but instead, you’re here, half watching a big screen while scrolling social media on a smaller screen. And for that, I’m forever grateful.”   

Our Call: Stream It! A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter is having a lot of laughs and fun – and Sabrina herself is having the most fun – but it also brings in a few nice versions of songs for season. And really, it never once takes itself too seriously, which itself is refreshing. Why don’t more celebrities just cut loose and riff on their own branded version of what in another TV era would be called a Christmas variety show?

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.