Arthur's Perfect Christmas

Arthur's Perfect Christmas is an hour-long Arthur special that first aired on November 23, 2000. It has since been released on home videos.

Summary
In a 1-hour special, several families celebrate the holidays in their own ways.
 * 1) Arthur's idea of a perfect Christmas is a holiday feast, a traditional Christmas tree, lots of snow, and giving everyone the perfect presents. However, he finds each of these factors slowly disappearing.
 * 2) Francine can't go to Muffy's party because she will be celebrating Hanukkah with her family, but Muffy just won't listen.
 * 3) Buster's mother gets stressed around the holidays ever since she and his father got divorced. Arthur and Brain suggest he make a new holiday: Baxter Day.

Plot
The special opens with scenes of citizens of Elwood City busy preparing for Christmas, while Pachelbel's Canyon is played in the background on piano. Arthur then sings the first of many of the special's musical numbers, "Perfect Christmas," in which he lays out his list of the things he wants in the upcoming Christmas:


 * 1) A large amount of snow
 * 2) An amazing dinner-turkey and the whole works
 * 3) A spectacular Christmas tree—most importantly, one without tinsel
 * 4) Everyone will love the presents he gets for them.

However, things don't always work out quite as Arthur wanted it to. As the special progresses, a number of other storylines are revealed: D.W. wants a new toy called "Tina the Talking Tabby," for Christmas and Santa Claus is unable to find it at any store as soon as he gets the letter. So on Christmas Morning D.W. got a duck and pitched a big fit before taking a liking to the duck. Uncle Fred is going on a trip to Florida, but his car just so happens to break down in Elwood City on the way there. So for the meantime, he and his dog, Rory, are staying at the Reads' for Christmas.

The timing of Francine's family's celebration of Hanukkah conflicts with that of Muffy's "holiday extravaganza," causing her to miss the party. When Muffy states that Hanukkah isn't as important as Christmas, Francine stops speaking to her and calling her. And ever since Buster's parents got divorced, Christmas has been a difficult time for him and his Mom. She wakes him up early on the days before Christmas and makes him pancakes, thinking that it's Christmas Day. Then he has to explain to her that it isn't Christmas yet. While Arthur, Buster, and their friends are at the party, they suggest he create his own holiday, Baxter Day. Buster is unsure, but he agrees to give it a try.

Every Christmas, Binky volunteers at a homeless shelter with his Dad, and this year, he's trying to bake something special to bring. However, he's forgetting some things in the recipe, like not removing the shells of the pecans when he makes pecan pie. Meanwhile, Brain's family is celebrating Kwanzaa.

George's family is revealed to be Swedish and they celebrate Saint Lucia Day. In the end, things don't work out quite as everybody may have hoped they would, but it seems to be for the better - well, maybe, assuming Arthur can ever get D.W. to stop her new toy, "Quackers", from singing "Quick, quack, quaddy-quack."

Trivia

 * Muffy yells "How Rude!", a catchphrase that was said by Stephanie Tanner in.
 * This is one of the VERY few times in the series where it features bathroom humor.
 * D.W. says near the end of this film, "Can I have a soda?" D.W. essentially said that in the episode Bleep! which most likely took place before this special aired.
 * This special aired right after Season 5 had concluded.
 * This is the final episode to have cel animation.
 * This was the last time where Michael Yarmush voiced Arthur.

Goofs

 * During the scene where Mr. Ratburn eats one of Binky's brownies, we see in the background a brown rabbit on the other side of Mr. Ratburn in his normal wear, but seconds later we see him in a red vest talking to Brain, but when Mr. Ratburn asks him if he put sugar in the brownies, the rabbit is white and is wearing a green shirt.
 * When Francine groaned, Her mouth doesn't move.
 * In Arthur's fantasy when his mom opens the gift, She pulled the top off, but when Arthur opened the gift to see if it was okay, he pulled the ribbon off to open it.
 * In school, Buster's eyes were fully opened, but after school, his eyes were half-opened/half-closed. But this is probably most likely due to the fact that he got more tired as the schoolday went on.

Songs
Many of these songs were not featured in the program itself, but are available on an officially released soundtrack album.
 * 1) Perfect Christmas (By Arthur & his family)
 * 2) Jingle Bells
 * 3) The First Noel
 * 4) Boogie Woogie Christmas (Rock & Rolling song)
 * 5) Here We Come A-wassailing
 * 6) O Little Town of Bethlehem
 * 7) Silent Night (By Fern)
 * 8) Fum, Fum, Fum
 * 9) It's Kwanzaa Time!
 * 10) What Child is This?
 * 11) What`s the Use of Presents? (By Muffy)
 * 12) Baxter Day (By Buster)
 * 13) I'm Not Scared of Santa (By Binky)
 * 14) We Three Kings
 * 15) Chanukah, Oh Chanukah
 * 16) Sevivon
 * 17) Sankta Lucia (In Swedish)
 * 18) Nu Är Det Jul Igen (Swedish for "Now It's Christmas Again")
 * 19) Angels We Have Heard on High
 * 20) Boogie Woogie Christmas
 * 21) Chanukah Blessing (By Francine & her family)
 * 22) Perfect Christmas (Finale with Nu Är Det Jul Igen) (By Arthur & the gang)
 * 23) Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella
 * 24) It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
 * 25) O Tannenbaum
 * 26) Joy to the World
 * 27) Perfect Christmas Reprise
 * 28) Baxter Day( Song by Buster Baxter)

Home Video release
The special has been released on DVD and on VHS prior to the format's demise. VHS copies are no longer in production. The original DVD and VHS releases were made available in 2000. A DVD re-release carrying the PBSKids logo was released on October 9, 2012. This release includes printable coloring pages and activities on DVD-ROM, two "A Word from Marc Brown" segments, and the usual promos for PBSKids programming of this era. Closed-captioning and descriptive-video features are available on this release. The special may be viewed via the Amazon Video service and costs $1.99 to rent, $5.99 to purchase and may be streamed freely at any time by subscribers to Amazon's Prime service.

Funding

 * Corporation For Public Broadcasting
 * Lego
 * Libby's Juicy Juice
 * Public Television Viewers

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