When are Your Favorite Christmas Specials on TV?

Growing up I had my favorite Christmas TV specials that I would watch year after year.

My favorites were all the stop animation specials that were created by Rankin/Bass. Their productions included: "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (1964, Burl Ives), "The Little Drummer Boy" (1968, Greer Garson), "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" (1970, Fred Astaire), "The Year Without a Santa Claus" (1974, Shirley Booth), "The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow" (1975, Angela Lansbury), "Rudolph's Shiny New Year" (1976, Red Skelton), "The Little Drummer Boy," Book II (1976, Greer Garson), "Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey" (1977, Roger Miller), and "Jack Frost" (1979, Buddy Hackett).

And then of course there were the animated specials like "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965), Dr. Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (1966, Boris Karloff), and "Frosty the Snowman" (1969, Jackie Version, Jimmy Durante).

Even as an adult I try to catch these specials when I can! They take me back in time to a world where life seemed less stressful. It is almost therapeutic to watch some of these old TV favorites.

TV Guide has recently put together a schedule for the air dates of many of the Christmas specials that we have watched over the years. Also included in the list are some movies based on Christmastime. Get your calendar out and start planning your TV watching for the next month!

I still wish I had a television with picture-in-picture because three of my favorites --"Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town", "Frosty the Snowman" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" -- are all on this Friday at 8 pm! I guess it's time for fresh batteries in the remote. There is going to be a lot of channel flipping!

Here is the list from TV Guide.