1) Animation, everywhere. The night starts with the very best: The brilliant “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is 7 p.m. on TNT, rerunning at 7:30 p.m. Then you could switch to ABC, for “Olaf’s Frozen Adventure” (shown here) at 8 and “Shrek the Halls” at 8:30; both have so-so stories, but lush, movie-style animation. Then it’s over to Freeform for the “Grinch” cartoon movie (2018) at 9 p,m., “The Star” (2017) at 11 p.m. and “Simpsons” Christmas reruns at 1 and 1:30 a.m.
2) Football, 8 p.m., Fox. This is the weekend when college conferences have their championship games. That starts here, with Washington and Southern California colliding for the Big-12 title; the other title games – lots of them – are Saturday. And tonight’s wrestling slides to Fox Sports1.
3) More Christmas. The last burst of new Christmas movies will be this weekend, including four of them on Saturday. Lifetime starts that tonight with “Christmas on the Menu” at 8 p.m. Also, Freeform has the three “Santa Clause” movies at 2:20 (1994), 4:25 (2002) and 6:55 p.m. (2006); at 10, AMC has one of the best of the films with a partial-Christmas theme, “Love Actually” (2003).
4) “Magnum P.I.,” 9 p.m., CBS. This sort of thing happens to Magnum a lot: He and Higgins are at a federal building to try and get her a green card. Naturally, that’s when armed gunmen storm the building, taking hostages.
5) “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” debut, any time, Netflix. Great talents populate this film. It’s based on a play by the late August Wilson (who won three Tonys and two Pulitzers), stars Oscar-winner Viola Davis and co-stars the late Chadwick Boseman. That’s part of a splendid string of Netflix movies on Fridays, following “Mank” on Dec. 4 and “The Prom” on Dec. 11. For streamers, it follows Thursday’s debuts of “Total Control” on Sundance Now and the ambitious “The Stand” reboot on CBS All Access.