One of the best things about the holiday season is the return of some classic cartoons and movies that only roll out it seems once a year (unless you own the DVD).

Charlie Brown always seems to get the season with the classic A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, but the even better A Charlie Brown Christmas airs for the first time this season tonight at 8pm on ABC.  The network plans to re-run the classic tale with the Peanuts gang (and that tiny little tree) on Dec. 20th.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas has already been on once, but the Dr. Seuss cartoon brings Who-Ville back on ABC on Dec. 18th (@ 8pm).  Jim Carey's movie of the Seuss tale will air on Sunday, Dec. 2nd at 7pm on ABC Family.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has been a mainstay for CBS since 1964.  Rudolph, Hermie, Yukon Cornelius, the Bumble, and of course Santa will take flight on Dec. 4th (8pm).

The crew at Rankin-Bass bring out their 2 holiday creations of note - Santa Claus Is Coming to Town and A Year Without a Santa Claus will roll out on back-to-back nights.  Santa, Mrs. Claus, and Heatmiser (he's too much!) are on ABC Family @ 8pm Dec. 10th, and the original tale on Santa came to being is on ABC on Dec. 11th (8pm).

More modern holiday cartoons to watch for includes Shrek The Halls (Dec. 18th @ 8:30pm on ABC), Prep & Landing (Dec. 9th @ 8pm on ABC), and Mickey's Christmas Carol (the 80s is modern in this genre - Dec. 4th on ABC Family at 5:30pm).

Movies we all seem to wait for include It's A Wonderful Life, Elf, A Christmas Story, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

Expect Elf to pop up several times over the next month, but mark down Dec. 1st at 8pm on ABC Family as your first chance.

It's A Wonderful Life is 66 years old and continues to be a Xmas Eve tradition for NBC (at 8pm).

A Christmas Story has been the Xmas day marathon tradition in the past thanks to TBS, and AMC did this with the Griswold family.

If you do not own these classic and cannot wait to watch, look for Christmas Vacation Dec. 3rd on ABC Family for 2 viewings that night (and watch for Clark and Ellen Griswold in the new Old Navy commercials), but you will wait for the B.B. Gun, the leg lamp, Fragile being Italian, Ralphie and the crew until Xmas.

 

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