One thing I dearly miss from our Boomer years is a December full of great Christmas specials on TV. This was entertainment at its finest – top stars, top acts, great music, great comedy, and classic cartoons.
In the 1950’s and 60’s, variety shows dominated the airwaves. Singers with top hits appeared regularly and comedians like Bob Newhart and Jonathan Winters left us in stitches as Hollywood presented quality programing almost nightly during the month of December.
The Andy Williams Christmas Special was perhaps the most popular and highly anticipated of all the Christmas specials. The Andy Williams Christmas Show ran for eight years during the era of holiday variety specials. He recorded eight Christmas albums over the years and was known as “Mr. Christmas” due to his specials as well as to the success of his song,
“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.â€
But there were many other Christmas specials. Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, The Osmond’s, Jack Benny, The Lennon Sisters, Lawrence Welk, Frank Sinatra, Roger Miller, Donna Reed, Doris Day, The Carpenters, Judy Garland, Shari Lewis, Johnny Cash and countless other stars offered their versions of Christmas Specials.
It was also during this era that many classic cartoon specials including shows like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964); A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965); How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966); The Little Drummer Boy (1968); Frosty the Snowman (1969); Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (1970); ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974); and The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974)
Many of these cartoon specials still play every year on one of our many channels.
Two of the all-time great Christmas movies came early. It’s A Wonderful Life was filmed in 1946 and White Christmas with Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney hit the big screen in 1954.  To this day, I watch White Christmas anytime it graces our TV screen.
I wish we had entertainers and special programming like we once had. Christmas is not the same without them.