Your Favorite Holiday Special

[MarkB]

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol.

There are many Christmas specials for Doctor Who, but this is the one I come back to again and again. A reimagining of the Dickens tale that wears its inspiration on its sleeve while making fun and creative use of time travel. Awesome performances and a great soundtrack really deliver the emotion on this one.

 

[Deset Gled]

And the classic Rudolph claymation with Fred Astaire. Which I assume is called Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. But I'm honestly just guessing at the title.

Fred Astaire is in Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. Rudolph is narrated by Burl Ives. All the stop-motion specials from Rankin-Bass are classics, but I definitely preferred Rudolph as a kid. Year Without a Christmas seems to be very popular with the memes these days, quoting the Snow Miser/Heat Miser songs.

Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas. I haven't seen it in years, but somebody mentioned it on Facebook and it brought back many fond childhood memories (we watched it pretty much every year when I was a kiddo).

Emmet Otter is near/at the top of my spouse's favorite specials, along with "The Bestest Present" based on the "For Better or Worse" comic strip. I think Emmet is free on Amazon Prime right now.

 

[Atomoctba]

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol.

There are many Christmas specials for Doctor Who, but this is the one I come back to again and again. A reimagining of the Dickens tale that wears its inspiration on its sleeve while making fun and creative use of time travel. Awesome performances and a great soundtrack really deliver the emotion on this one.

With the best doctor (11th) and the best companion (Amy Pond)

 

[CleverNickName]

3. Seinfeld, "The Strike"
The episode that gave us Festivus for the rest of us! My friends and I actually observe this fake holiday, and "the airing of grievances" has become one of our favorites.

2. Twilight Zone, "Night of the Meek"
The best and wierdest Santa Claus story ever. If you haven't seen it, you really REALLY need to.

1. M*A*S*H, "Death Takes a Holiday"
This is probably the best episode of the whole series. The crew of the 4077th entertain a bunch of local orphans, which adds some much-needed levity to the main plot: BJ, Hoolahan, and Hawkeye work to save the life of a soldier so that his family won't think of Christmas as the day their father died.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Scrooge checking in I guess but I can honestly say this wasn't hard for me because I cannot think of a single "holiday special" TV show which is actually positive for me. There are some Who Xmas ones which aren't bad, but they're still worse than like, a decent normal episode of Who (at least all the ones I can think of). Guardians of the Galaxy wasn't too bad I guess!

I don't say this out some genuine anti-Xmas (or other holiday) curmudgeonly-ness - there are countless good Xmas movies or non-special Xmas episodes of shows.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I gotta go with the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

Chuck Jones at the height of his powers and the only Christmas special from when I was a kid that holds up today.

 

[Vael]

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol.

There are many Christmas specials for Doctor Who, but this is the one I come back to again and again. A reimagining of the Dickens tale that wears its inspiration on its sleeve while making fun and creative use of time travel. Awesome performances and a great soundtrack really deliver the emotion on this one.

I debated doing a ranking of Doctor Who Christmas Specials, but tbh, a lot of them are kinda forgettable or are barely about Christmas and use it as just a setting, but I'd agree that this is my favourite as well. I like that it leans into we're just doing A Christmas Carol here, but has some fun twists.

 

[aco175]

With that many restrictions on what to pick from, I'll have to go with the National Football League Christmas broadcast. Otherwise I go with It's a Wonderful Life.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Fred Astaire is in Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. Rudolph is narrated by Burl Ives. All the stop-motion specials from Rankin-Bass are classics, but I definitely preferred Rudolph as a kid. Year Without a Christmas seems to be very popular with the memes these days, quoting the Snow Miser/Heat Miser songs.

I have clearly conflated these in my memory. Thanks!

 

[ichabod]

It's a Bad Brains Christmas, Charlie Brown