Christmas Episodes From The Groovy Era

With Christmas music starting the day after Halloween and retail giants having their Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving Day, it can be quite easy to become overwhelmed by the materialism of the holidays. A great way to counteract that is to sit down with a cup of hot chocolate and watch Christmas episodes from classic sitcoms of the Groovy Era, which serve as a reminder of what is really important during the holiday season.
Happy Days was a 1970s sitcom about life in the 1950s, which starred Henry Winkler and Ron Howard, among others. The series follows the unlikely friendship between all-American Richie Cunningham and the much edgier Arthur “the Fonz” Fonzarelli. The season two episode, “Guess Who’s Coming to Christmas,” marks the final appearance of Richie’s older brother, Chuck Cunningham, who is never even mentioned again. No explanation was ever given for the character’s disappearance, though it was likely because “Fonzi” was filling the role of big brother to Richie, thus making the character of Chuck superfluous.
In any case, the term “Chuck Cunningham Syndrome” is now used to describe a situation in which an established character disappears from a show without his or her absence being acknowledged by the remaining characters. But the real takeaway from this episode is the conflict. Richie’s father, Howard, wants to spend Christmas Eve with just his family and no one else. But Richie realizes that Fonzi is alone for the holiday and convinces a reluctant Howard to invite him to stay with them. At first, Fonzi is too proud to admit he has nowhere to go and Howard is forced to overcome his own reluctance to convince him to stay. This episode serves as a reminder that family is more than just blood and there should always be room at the table for a friend in need.




Bewitched ran from 1964 to 1972 and told the story of a witch named Samantha, who was married to a mortal named Darrin and her attempts to lead an ordinary, aka non-magical, life. Those attempts mostly fail, especially when her mother Endora shows up, and much of the show is spent concealing the effects of her magic. In “A vision of Sugar Plums,” Samantha and Darrin decide to invite an orphan named Michael to spend Christmas with them. Michael is very disillusioned and doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, so Samantha reveals that she is a witch and takes him to the North Pole to show him that Santa is real. The moral of this story is quite heavy handed as Santa lectures Michael on the importance of not judging someone by their appearance and reminds him that Christmas is about giving, not receiving. The episode originally aired during the show’s first season but was repeated as a flashback with a brief introduction in the second season.
From the similar message of these episodes, one thing is clear. Thanksgiving and Christmas come back to back, not to provide a day off from work to go shopping, but as an opportunity for people to first give thanks for what they have and then to share it by giving gifts that come from their hearts, not their wallets.