Sarah’s Christmas Corner: Best Holiday TV Specials!

One of my favorite things about the holidays as a kid, were looking forward to when the holiday TV specials would air! While pretty much all of them are hokey and the animation is outdated… there is a certain nostalgic charm. Which is probably why they are still so popular, even with younger generations! These are my top three favorite holiday specials!

A Garfield Christmas Special

I loved Garfield as a kid. The comics, the cartoon, everything! So of course I looked forward to the Christmas special every year. Jon packing Odie and Garfield in the car and heading to his parents always made me think of how Christmas day my parents would cart us around to three different houses for three different Christmases. My favorite part of the episode is when Garfield climbed up on Grandma’s lap, as she shared memories about her husband.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Stop-motion for the win! How can you think of holiday specials, and not think of all the stop-motion animation specials that exist! Santa Claus is Coming to Town is by far my favorite one. Not just the story.. but also all the weird moments of animation. Take this scene for instance. How weird the penguin looks! Oh, and this song still slaps. It still gets randomly stuck in my head.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

My all time FAVORITE holiday special, goes to Charlie Brown. You know that this special almost didn’t happen? When the special was first shown to the executives at CBS, they were not on board with it. But because of Coca-Cola sponsoring the special, CBS had no other choice but to air the special. So many quotable lines come from this holiday special! Not to mention Linus’s entire monologue! Just like Santa Claus is Coming to Town, some of my favorite parts don’t even have to do with the story. It has to do with the wonky animation, and inconsistent backgrounds. It just adds to the charm of the whole thing.