I love holiday specials. I love Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, I love Frosty the Snowman, I love the Charlie Brown Christmas and bunches of others. A new tradition in holiday TV watching has become the "A Home for the Holidays Entertainment Special" that airs each year on CBS to celebrate adoption and advocate for children awaiting adoption in the United States foster care system.

This year will be the ninth annual broadcast of "A Home for the Holidays". It will be broadcast on December 21 on CBS. Starring in this year's show will be Sheryl Crow, James Blunt, Fergie, Karmina, Carole King, John Legend, Reba McEntire, David Krumholtz, George Lopez,Rene Russo and other celebrities. Some of the stars will perform, and others will tell the stories of adoptive families and waiting children.

By sharing stories of children waiting in foster care and by highlighting the stories of happy families built through the adoption of children in foster care, awareness is drawn to the need for more families to adopt children from the U.S. foster care system.

Most of the celebrities involved in the show have either personal experience with adoption or are involved with advocating for children's issues. The special is presented in association with the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and the Children's Action Network.

I wrote about this special and how much I enjoy it last year, but then after watching it, I also wrote about how I was disappointed that there were not any transracial adoptive families featured on the show.

I think that with the many number of older, special needs and "harder to place" children waiting in the foster system, combined with the strict guidelines in place that really narrow down potential families for these children (most states won't consider allowing families with more than five children to adopt), that sending a message that children can only be adopted by same-race families is doing a disservice to the children waiting.

So I will watch again this year because I love the show. I love the happy-ending stories. I love to see children thrive, even after facing great suffering. I love to see happy adoption stories. But I will definitely be hoping that one of the three adoptive families that they are featuring in this year's show will be a transracial adoptive family.

We shall see I suppose. :)

Resources:

Foster Care Blog

Foster Adoption Blog

* Photo from Liquid Library