1. When I was young(er), Christmas specials were just that, shown once a year around Christmas. There were no DVDs, no TiVo, no VCRs, not even cable. So when you saw that television commercial telling you the Dr Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas was going to be on next Tuesday at 8pm, you made sure all your homework was done and you were in front of the tv at 7:55 (already having gone to the bathroom, because like I said before – no TiVo).

Not only were the animated specials only shown once a year, but commercial radio didn’t play non stop Christmas music for weeks. If you were lucky you heard Holly Jolly Christmas by Burl Ives, but you would never hear anything like Snow Miser-Heat Miser or You’re a Mean One Mr Grinch. Thank goodness tv and radio evolved, because today, if I feel like it, I can watch Rudolph, Herme and Yukon Cornelius out smart the Bumble on the Fouth of July, or listen to Boris Karloff narrate all 23 minutes of the Grinch while sitting in traffic on my way to work. Oh, how I love Christmas.

Anyway, here are my Top Ten favorite songs from classic animated Christmas specials (the shows title is in parenthesis if it’s not obvious):

•  10. Linus’s Monologue (A Charlie Brown Christmas)
• 9. We’re a Couple of Misfits (Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer)
• 8. Frosty the Snowman
• 7. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
• 6. Jingle Bells (performed by Schroeder – A Charlie Brown Christmas)
• 5. Santa Claus is Coming to Town
• 4. Put One Foot in Front of the Other (Santa Claus is Coming to Town)
• 3. Holly Jolly Christmas (Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer)
• 2. Snow Miser/Heat Miser (Year Without a Santa Claus)
• 1. You’re a Mean One, Mr Grinch

If you want to find out more about these specials, check out a few videos, or purchase a few for your self, check out my Favorite Animated Christmas Songs.

My mother, being Italian, always cooked (and in this case baked) to serve a crowd, usually a very hungry crowd. So it was not uncommon for her to increase the size of the recipe by 8X, yes that’s right 8X. If the recipe produced 2dozen cookies, we made 16 dozen. Add to that the fact that sehe usually baked 4 or 5 different types of cookies, and you’d think we were starting our own business. Even though we had the family over for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (nothing was better than Mom’s Lasagna), we were still left with enough cookies to enjoy well into March.

Every cookie was made as perfectly as possible, from the shape of the Almond Crescents to the branches on the Butter Cookie Christmas Trees. Once baked and cooled, all the cookies were stored in round, aluminum foil lined, tins and stacked in the den. We worked and worked while the much loved Christmas specials played in the background. Don’t get me wrong, it was a lot of work over several evenings, and Mom wasn’t always in the best of moods, but it was something to look forward to.

So every year, when those chilly New York December days rolled around again, my mother would buy pounds and pounds of butter, then break out the hand-cranked cookie cutter and we’d get start rolling, shaping, and decorating our way into another Christmas season. And now, since my own children are old enough to start helping, I get to do it all over – with them!

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