Blackadder - 'Blackadder's Christmas Carol'
Avengers s4 - 'Too Many Christmas Trees'
Futurama s2 - 'Xmas Story'
Futurama s4 - 'A Tale of Two Santas'
Justice League s2 - 'Comfort and Joy'
Bob Newhart Show s2 - 'I'm Dreaming Of A Slight Christmas'
Moonlighting s2 - 'Twas the Episode Before Christmas'
Batman: The Animated Series s1 - 'Christmas With The Joker'
The New Batman Adventures s1 - 'Holiday Knights'
Buffy s3 - 'Amends'
Stingray (1964) - 'A Christmas to Remember'

Hardly comprehensive, but a nice eclectic list to ease you into the holidays.

How about the DOCTOR WHO episode, "The Christmas Invasion"? A lot of UK shows do standalone Christmas episodes between seasons. They are doing another DOCTOR WHO Christmas special this year before the third season run.

SHAMELESS, another UK show I like a lot, did a very dark Christmas episode involving people getting sick on tainted meat. Speaking of SHAMELESS, did Anne-Marie Duff and James McAvoy leave after the second series? I have series 2 but I haven't watched all of it. Series 3 just came out on DVD in R2, but I don't know if it's worth getting without Duff and McAvoy.

I was limiting myself to stuff on hand (and I just plain forgot about 'The Christmas Invasion).

The Twilight Zone, season 2 - "Night of the Meek"
The Monkees, season 2 - "The Christmas Show"

Pokemon had a few Christmas-themed eps., including #62, "Holiday Hi-Jynx." Pokemon Chronicles had an episode called "Christmas Night," which shows what happens when the Pokemon are left alone for the holidays.

The Power Rangers may have done a Christmas show or two.

Morning Musume did a Christmas special for their show, "Hello Morning," last Christmas in which the girls, dressed as elementary school students, sang "Jingle Bells" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," among other songs, in Japanese, with gags thrown in to interrupt them. I'm making a tape of highlights from it to try and play for the family at Christmas. (I'm expecting protests.)

Getting back to American favorites, Henry Louis Gates Jr., head of the African-American Studies Dept. at Princeton (or was he still at Harvard then?), once wrote an op-ed column for The New York Times about the Christmas episode of "Amos 'n' Andy," and how he and his family in rural West Virginia prized its broadcast every Christmas in the 1950s because it showed them a larger black world with a black Santa and a department store with all black employees and shoppers and which sold black dolls. (The plot, I think, had to do with Andy dressing up as Santa Claus and trying to scrape up enough money to get a doll for a girl.) Gates recounted how he tried to get his daughters to watch it on videotape decades later and they loudly rejected its stereotyped portrayals.

I make a point of watching THE TWILIGHT ZONE's "Night of the Meek" and "The Changing of the Guard" as part of my Christmas viewing every year.

For something that bit darker (yet funnier), the Christmas special from THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN was pretty lovely too.

Which series...er season would that be?

It's a bridge between the second and third series of the...um...series. It kind of requires knowing who certain characters are that don't appear in Royston Vasey until S2.

I'm rather partial to "The Big Little Jesus" episode of DRAGNET '67, and "Christmas Flintstone" as two of my favorite holiday TV variants not yet mentioned.

More recently, "O Christmas Pete" from Nickelodeon's THE ADVENTURES OF PETE AND PETE and A PINKY & THE BRAIN CHRISTMAS have joined the list as well.

"The tree stays, fungus-lick!"

"By any chance, in that big bag of yours, would you happen to have...the world?"

I always liked the ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW and their Christmas episode from the first season. Although a play on the Scrooge theme, its truly heartwarming.

The DICK VAN DYKE SHOW had a Christmas episode where cast members performed Christmas music (I think) with a horrendous rendering of The Little Drummer Boy sung by kid Richie...and wasn't there another VAN DYKE SHOW where Rob, Buddy and Sally see a flying saucer but it turns out its a toy for Christmas?

A couple of years ago I saw a Jack Benny Christmas special on PBS where he's in a department store looking for gifts. It was really hilarious and still holds up. Is anybody familiar with this and is it available anywhere?

That episode of "The Jack Benny Program" is out on about 234 different public domain DVDs. You should have to look no further than your local dollar store.

Howsabout "Scrooge Gets An Oscar" from the first season of THE ODD COUPLE with Oscar dreaming the Christmas Carol schtick? Nice work (as always) by the two leads, and the rest of their poker-playing pals.

And MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. BEAN is pretty wonderful. Christmas socks!

The Christmas Carol episode of WKRP IN CINCINNATI still isn't available on DVD. Guess once again Santa didn't get my letter.

After the "Woodland Critters Christmas" episode of SOUTH PARK, there can be no other Xmas hour of television for me.

I am forever scarred.

I have to cast another vote for "Night of the Meek" (1960) from TWILIGHT ZONE, so moving, with a great perf by Art Carney

And I used to call it 'guilty pleasure', but I no longer feel guilty: MAMA'S FAMILY is a hilarious show and the three Christmas Eps are among the best, esp the mall Santa one

How could we all have forgotten "A Bionic Christmas Carol" with SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN Steve Austin (Lee Majors) helping grumpy old Ray Walston learn the meaning of Christmas and give hapless "Bob Crandall" (Dick Sargent) a day off of work?

Ha! I don't know if I ever saw that one. I would love it if TVLand would do a cheesy Christmas episode marathon. They must have access to tons of this stuff.