Play Holiday TV Favorites Crossword

How do you choose your favorite holiday specials? It’s almost impossible! Nostalgia informs so many of our choices when we put together these lists of shows, around which we create all these fun and challenging puzzles. And when the theme is the holidays, which are steeped in nostalgia in the first place, the job becomes even harder. But still fun! Is it the older stopmotion-animated shows like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, and The Year Without a Santa Claus? The classic Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas? What’s so wonderful about these specials is that we grew up with them as kids and so did our kids and grandkids. The networks (and now the streamers, too) rebroadcast these every season, and they still hold up. Ratings-wise, they often beat the competition, even though they are decades-old productions. And there are the newer classics, too, which we love just as much. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Elf, Home Alone and Planes, Trains and Automobiles are played just as much in our homes during the holidays as White Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life. —Michael Fell, Editor-in-Chief of TV Guide Magazine