Are TV Christmas Specials As ‘Special’ They Used To Be?

When I was a kid back in the late 70's and 80's, I couldn't wait each year to see all the TV Christmas specials. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas, The Year Without A Santa Claus, and Frosty the Snowman were all favorites of mine. But are all those beloved holiday specials still as special to kids today?

In today's society, we're all used to watching things on OUR schedule, not the TV networks' schedule. Services like On-Demand, Netflix, Hulu and even our own in-home DVRs have given us more control over our entertainment, so much so that outside of a live sporting event, like a Vikings or Packer game, or the Super Bowl, there aren't too many things we watch in live, in real time anymore.

But back in the day, before cable-TV, DVRs and even VCRs, when you really only had the big three TV networks to watch, you REALLY were excited when a holiday special was on.  Even the networks made a bigger deal of these holiday specials back in the day. To a 10-year-old kid like me, when you saw that now dated-looking graphic and that drum intro, you KNEW something exciting was coming on next. Do you remember THIS intro?