Christmas past was Andy Williams, Magoo as Scrooge, A Christmas Memory (Capote), The Gathering ....

My whole family would watch this every year, for years. We knew all the words to all the songs. It's a wonderful Christmas cartoon show. I was thrilled when I found the DVD.

I recently recommended it as a good Christmas show. http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1018&pid=241368

The Gathering...was that with Ed Asner? That was pretty good.

I saw Christmas Memory only once.

We watched Andy Williams AND Bing Crosby Christmas shows. It was tradition. So was White Christmas (again, we knew all the words to all the songs). We also watched It's a Wonderful Life ("Burt! Burt! It's me! Don'tcha know me, Burt?")

Now it's all those corny, schmaltzy Hallmark network made for TV Christmas movies.

Also...if you get a chance to see Blackadder's Christmas Carol, it is hilarious.

& (obviously) great story.

I loved that movie and cry every time I watch it. Maureen Stapleton and Ed Asner.

Of course, I'm always waiting for the recitation of "Christmas in the Work House".

It's in segments on youtube:

forgive him and take him in, just because he's dying. That was the kind thing to do, and maybe I would've done the same thing, so I wouldn't have the guilt and would know I did the right thing. But he'd been a real a-hole and deserted his family and been a lousy husband and father. I didn't see how his dying changed any of that.

But I may feel that way 'cause my dad left us. And yeah, we made peace iwth him years later. Still....we all know he was an a-hole. Can't change the past.

But it was a touching made for TV movie. One of the good ones.

People tend to give second chances because of the humanism behind the holiday. And he did change his attitudes towards his family which made it easier for them to give him a second look. Especially when he welcomed back his son, Bud, who fled to Canada instead of going to Vietnam.

Plus, only his wife and his doctor (and later another son) knew that he was dying. The rest of the family forgave him without feeling that this was their only chance to reconcile.

You're right. It was a complex movie.

touching memories for me.

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158681/

J. T. Gamble, a shy, withdrawn Harlem youngster, shows compassion and responsibility when he takes on the care of an old, one-eyed, badly injured alley cat days before Christmas and secretly nurses it back to health.

1970 Won Peabody Award (CBS-TV).

Produced for a Saturday morning children's anthology on CBS, the film garnered such rave reviews that CBS decided to give it a prime time airing the following week.