“If we were little pigs we’d sing piggy-wiggy-wiggy-wiggy-woo…”
Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol is my lifetime favorite–I’ve loved it since its first airing, in 1962–with the Grinch close behind.
Today’s gold box special at Amazon is for Rankin-Bass collections.
Here at Casaflodnak we have a tradition. I don’t remember how it got started, but aren’t those the best kind of tradition? The day that school lets out for Christmas break, I make pizzas and brownie sundaes and we eat supper in the living room in front of the TV. The younger flodnaks, who are now 10 and 16, insist on How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas, though we never seem to remember which is the “traditional” order, and then a collection of Disney cartoons that I think might have been special for the Scandinavian or at least European market - starting with the very ancient Santa’s Workshop and The Night Before Christmas. It’s a nice tradition and I’d say those are our can’t-miss Christmas specials. At some point we have to watch A Muppet Christmas Carol, too.
If they ever bring out the original John Denver and the Muppets Christmas special on DVD, I will buy it immediately. I played the cassette nearly to death before I finally got the whole thing on CD.
In our house no one (i.e. my wife) is allowed to start Christmas stuff until after Thanksgiving. In order to celebrate the occasion we watch “A Muppet Christmas Carol” and “Elf.”
My annual must-sees:
Originally a TV show: Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol
A movie, but reliably played many, many times on TV during the Christmas season: White Christmas
Movies that may or may not be played on TV during the season, but I don’t care because I’ve got them on DVD: Holiday Inn; Love, Actually
•Charlie Brown Christmas, 'natch.
•I’m an old fan of The Snowman.
•Glad to hear someone else liked the Garfield special! Funny story: when watching that as a kid, I somehow got the impression that Jon’s—deceased, unseen except for (as I remember) a brief photo—grandfather was black. I have absolutely no idea where that came from.
•According to my mom, my sister and I never sang the regular version of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”…just the Motown versionhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXzriJ2LDpI from the California Raisins’ “**A Claymation Christmas Celebration.”
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•Jim Henson’s The Christmas Toy. sniff Still love it. Even all the old commercials from when we taped it when it first aired.
•The Pacific Northwest Ballet/Maurice Sendak version of The Nutcracker.
•I think Twas the Night Before Christmas turned me into an atheist, or at least planted the seeds of it. I guess I think too much with my head and not with my heart. Hah! 
•The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, because of it being extremely messed up. It has Samurai, and a guy that’s basically Gandalf. With an axe. Slaying trolls. For Santa Claus.
[quote=Ranchoth;13168611•According to my mom, my sister and I never sang the regular version of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”…just the Motown versionhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXzriJ2LDpI from the California Raisins’ "A Claymation Christmas Celebration."
[/quote]
I was wondering if anybody else remembered this show! Back in the day, when my kids were tiny, I started videotaping some of the Christmas specials as they aired. Now, of course, you can get 'em all on DVD, but this was about the only way to keep these shows back then. This is one we recorded, and we love re-watching it every Christmas time. The Carol of the Bells (conducted by Quasimodo) and the skating walruses (and the unlucky penguins) literally make me laugh out loud.
If you can find it, you will enjoy it.