In this week’s ATV, we discuss the new Netflix Christmas special, A Very Murray Christmas, and the inherent flaws in a celebrity Christmas special built around a depressive, alcoholic character who’s not great at singing. We also talk about the Christmas special as a genre and touch on some of our favorites, including A Colbert Christmas, the Rankin and Bass classics, Charlie Brown, and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
We then inaugurate It’s a Wonderful Life as a retroactively official TV Christmas special, and move on to discuss some of the emotionally fraught aspects of the holiday. Margaret and Andrew were gift receiving monsters at one point, Kathryn cried at the wrong part of Bridge to Terabithia, and we make some space for those of us who are just trying to muddle through somehow.