I would love to show my young daughter all the best Christmas movies out there, but unfortunately, I can only hold her attention for so long. Kids today are spoiled by the sheer number of things they can do, and while she may love watching something with me, eventually she wants to move on to something else. I know a lot of other kids are the same, so we set about finding short Christmas specials for the kid who can only devote so much attention.
With 2024 winding down and the 2025 TV schedule on the horizon, there's not much left to do but watch holiday specials. Winter break is just around the corner for many school children, so maybe make a note to pull up these Christmas specials for the young ones to watch when they need some quick entertainment.
A Garfield Christmas Special
While I admittedly had some issues with showing my child The Garfield Movie earlier this year, we had a blast watching A Garfield Christmas Special. Jon takes Garfield out to his family farm, where we meet a number of other people in the Arbuckle family. It's not exactly what Garfield had in mind for Christmas, but he's a cat, so I feel like his imagination is pretty thin as is.
What I loved about this one is that there's actually a really heartwarming story and we see Garfield as a lot more sympathetic than he usually is. The special is also really vibrant with color, so I felt like it did a better job at grabbing my kid's attention than the average holiday special.
Stream A Garfield Christmas Special on Peacock
Elf Pets: Santa's Reindeer Rescue
If you're a parent during the holiday season these days, chances are you're actively participating in the Elf On A Shelf trend. While I would love Thanos to come to my house to snap ours to oblivion, my daughter loves it and is obsessed with any and all things related to the franchise. All this to say, it was her who found Elf Pets: Santa's Reindeer Rescue, and it's one she'd highly recommend.
Those who have an elf and a Netflix subscription would do well to fire this one up when things are getting a little too rowdy around the house. I'll be candid, there wasn't a lot for me to enjoy about this one, but my daughter loved watching the elves run around and sing considering she's never awake when hers does, and that was enough to make me happy.
Watch Elf Pets: Santa's Reindeer Rescue on Netflix
Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas
I was skeptical of Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas, mainly because I consider Elf one of the best Christmas movies. I'm also not someone who particularly likes musicals, but when I saw this was a stop-motion feature, I decided to give it a chance. Much to my surprise, The Big Bang Theory's Jim Parsons is the voice of Buddy, and it all was uphill from there.
The musical version is more or less the same story, with some scenes added in mainly for the purpose of putting a song in. The jokes don't hit as hard with Parsons delivering them as they do with Will Ferrell, but with the animation, it's pretty easy to think of this movie as something entirely separated from the feature film. Plus, all it did was get my daughter interested in watching the actual Elf movie again. Maybe this time, she'll sit through the whole thing.
Watch Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas On Paramount+
The Smurfs Christmas
"This is not the Smurfs I know" was the first words out of my daughter's mouth when I fired this up. It's a totally valid response considering I'm really only familiar with reruns of the cartoon series that originally aired before I was even born. That said, I had a feeling she'd be down with watching The Smurfs Christmas, and just as I predicted, she loved it.
Fair warning: The Smurfs Christmas is a bit wild. There was a scene in which I thought Gargamel was going to die a horrible death at the hands of a wizard. I guess things were just a bit more hardcore in children's shows in the 1980s because I can't imagine that happening in the upcoming Smurfs movie. Despite that one moment, I think this is one that the kids can enjoy in a relatively short amount of time, and then go about their day.
Watch The Smurfs Christmas On Paramount+
The Legend Of Frosty The Snowman
Unfortunately, Frosty The Snowman (and Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer) is not available on streaming this year, but a sequel that was made in the mid-2000s is. The third installment in the franchise isn't the classic, but it's on par quality-wise from the original. Viewers will get to see Frosty running around and making kids laugh with his holiday cheer, and that's good enough in my book.
I will say as a small gripe to this special that it's chock full of some preachy criticisms of "kids today don't have fun like they used to," which just irked me. Like, I don't think I've ever had to tell my kid to throw a snowball and I didn't slap it out of their hand because I thought it was too dangerous. There's a lot of goofy stuff like that, maybe because it was made possible by people who thought a 30+ year old children's special needed a third entry.
Watch The Legend Of Frosty The Snowman On Peacock
Trolls Holiday Special
Trolls' Poppy is probably the most beloved children's character in my household, so Trolls Holiday Special was an easy win. The plot is centered around her discovery that the Bergens do not celebrate holidays, which leads to her trying to convince them to celebrate the multitude of holidays that Troll people observe. As is often the case in these adventures, Poppy goes in with the best of intentions, but things quickly start to spiral out of control.
I give this one the highest marks of any of the specials, mainly because there's a real authenticity to it. Most all of the Trolls voice actors from the movies are involved in it, and it's pretty funny. Plus, if you like this one, there's another holiday special (Trolls: Holiday In Harmony) to check out afterward!
Watch Trolls Holiday Special On Netflix
Streaming is the place to be for holiday specials, especially when the long days of winter break approach for children. Check out some of these plus more on their respective platforms, and maybe help those kids build a tolerance for the longer movies.
