When the Holidays roll around, my inner child starts jumping at the thought of watching the many wonderful specials featuring Jim Henson’s Muppets.  Hands down, the best version of Dicken’s “Christmas Carol” is The Muppets Christmas Carol. Alongside their double dose of specials with the late John Denver, the Muppets even premiered a new special last year, A Muppet’s Christmas: Letters to Santa.

However, one of my favorites is the seldom seen 1987 made-for-TV special, A Muppet Family Christmas.  While most of the specials center on the core Muppet characters, Family Christmas is truly about the entire Muppet family.

 The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and even Doc and Sprocket from Fraggle Rock make appearances!  It is a wonderful old-timey type Christmas special replete with singing, corny jokes, and morality tales for the season.

The basic skeleton of the show revolves around Fozzie Bear bringing home all his Muppet friends to his mother Emily’s house for Christmas.  Fozzie’s mom bears (all puns intended) a striking resemblance to her son both on the outside and in and warmly accepts all the Muppets into her home to celebrate.

You wanna understand how good this is?  The Swedish Chef has a duet with Big Bird.  The Electric Mayhem jazzify “Jingle Bell Rock.”  Jim Henson, the man himself, cameos at the end washing dishes!  Need I go on?  With over 20 songs, and literally a cast of 50 plus Muppets, A Muppet Family Christmas delivers a jam packed hour of Holiday cheer.

The true beauty lies in the vocal qualities of the Muppet performers.  I may never be able to put my finger on it, but there is just something about Gonzo’s gravely tone-def singing voice, or Miss Piggy’s over the top delivery, or Rizzo’s nasally inflections that makes virtually any song better.  You put any Muppet, any of them, on American Idol and they’d win by a landslide.  Combine that x-factor with familiar Christmas tunes and what you get is an instant shot of joy to your soul.

Not readily available in most stores, some used DVD copies of A Muppet Family Christmas are up over at Amazon.  This 2001 release is the victim of some music rights issues, so a few of the numbers have been omitted, including the Muppet Babies sequence.  Hoewever, you take what you can get, and for now this is the best way to see a fantastic piece of family entertainment.

I highly recommend picking one up and pairing it with the incredible Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas for an evening of sing-a-long celebration!