Whatever Happened To Christmas In July?

It's funny, the one thing that never made sense to me when I was a kid was the whole Christmas In July concept. All the commercialized Christmas characters like Santa Claus, Rudolph, Frosty, and The Grinch selling everything from electronics to cars to, well, everything. Stores used to put the commercial side of the Christmas holiday in all of their ads, and cable networks used to show Christmas programming around the weekend of July 25. It was a whoot seeing The Grinch, Yogi's First Christmas, Twas The Night Before Christmas, and all of those kitschy-but-cool specials around this time. Heck, they even showed the ultimate Christmas crossover, Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas In July (little known fact, although the stop-motion characters were made in the good ol' US, a lot of those Rankin-Bass specials were animated in Japan, kind of like their last major project, Thundercats, were).

This year . . . nothing. It's strange that this weird commercial concept that has been a part of our culture has disappeared all of sudden. Perhaps it's best that Christmas programming will only air in December, post-Thanksgiving at the earliest. Still, it seems as if another part of my childhood has gone away.

So, if you dare to comment, what was your favorite Christmas special?

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