A Charlie Brown Christmas

This television classic features the Peanuts characters in the story of Charlie Brown's problematic efforts to mount a school Christmas pageant.

Everybody's on board: Lucy, Snoopy, Schroeder, Pig-Pen, but the biggest impression is surely made by Linus, who stops the show with his recitation from the gospels of the story of Christ's birth.

It's the perfect time to decorate a tree or read about Christ's birth.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

This classic 1964 television special featuring Rudolph and his misfit buddies set the standard for stop-motion animation for an entire generation before Tim Burton darkly reinvented it in the early 1990s.

Burl Ives narrates as Sam the Snowman, telling and singing the story of a rejected reindeer who overcomes prejudice and saves Christmas one particularly blustery year.

Along the way, he meets an abundance of unforgettable characters: his dentally obsessed elf pal Hermey; the affable miner Yukon Cornelius and his motley crew of puppies; the scary/adorable Abominable Snow Monster; and a legion of abandoned, but still useful, toys.

The Little Drummer Boy

This story has touched the hearts of families everywhere. In this holiday classic, the true spirit of Christmas is revealed when a lonely orphan stumbles upon the birth of the baby Jesus and affirms what the holidays are really about – giving and love.

Featuring a beautiful soundtrack by the Vienna Boys’ Choir, this 1968 Rankin and Bass TV classic, with the underlying message that everybody has something worth contributing, qualifies the show for holiday-perennial status.