Welcome to the 2025 Heistmas Advent Calendar, a daily drop of pop culture Christmas icons, oddities, and joy. Check back every day from now through December 25 for each daily entry!
If you're watching one Muppet-themed holiday thing in December, it's probably The Muppet Christmas Carol. If you're watching two, you might add Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas. But longtime Muppet fans, particularly those of who were around in the 1980s and 1990s, will tell you that there's another must-watch Christmas classic in the Muppet canon, though it's one that hasn't seen rebroadcast in quite some time.
A Muppet Family Christmas, which originally aired on ABC in 1987, is Jim Henson Productions' effort to do a kind of classic TV "Home for Christmas" special, using the characters of The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and even Fraggle Rock as the beloved figures all set to reunite in an idyllic setting for the holidays. It all starts with the Muppet Show gang piling into a truck to drive out to the country and surprise Fozzie's mother Emily at the Bear family farm. What they don't know is that Emily is set to fly out for Malibu any minute, and she's already rented out the farmhouse to an old man named Doc (Gerry Parkes) and his dog Sprocket. What follows is pure holiday shenanigans, as the Bear farmhouse fills up with more and more Muppets who bring their songs, their jokes, and their traditions with them.
You can find Muppet Family Christmas on YouTube, though various edited versions exist due to rights issues surrounding several songs and segments from the original broadcast. Those rights issues have meant that rebroadcast and proper re-releases are difficult, but the show is still out there, spreading a simple yet poignant message of kindness, caring, and sharing as the Muppets all pile into a house that's clearly too small to hold them. Here at the end of our 2025 Advent Calendar, though, what's most important about it is Henson himself.
Yes, Jim Henson does all of his usual puppeteering work in the special, playing Kermit, Rowlf, Swedish Chef and many more, but the really special moment comes at the very end of A Muppet Family Christmas. While the whole Muppet gang is gathered around the fireplace singing carols in the living room, the show briefly cuts to the kitchen, where Henson, as himself, is preparing to do the dishes with Sprocket the dog. It's a brief glimpse of the man who brought us these characters and stories across decades, but it's his sentiment that sticks with you, as he says simply: "I like it when they have a good time."
Jim Henson would live another two-and-a-half years after A Muppet Family Christmas was released, working tirelessly the entire time on a number of projects. This was far from his last public appearance and was certainly never intended to be a parting gift from creator to audience. Watching it now, though, 35 years after Henson's sudden death, we get a sense not just of closure, but of parting wisdom. A Muppet Family Christmas is, like so much of Henson's work, about the importance of kindness, of opening your door to someone, of simply giving a damn when the world tell you to look the other way. So when Henson smiles at his creations -- creations he already knew would outlive him no matter how much time he had left -- and says "I like it when they have a good time," he's also talking to us. The world is better when you can take simple pleasure in the happiness of others. The world is better when you not only leave space for the joy of those around you, but relish it, let it in, allow its light to brighten your world as well as theirs.
Jim was right then, and he's right now. Most traditional advent calendars wrap up on December 24, but this is not a traditional advent calendar, so we're taking the 25th to leave you with a nontraditional parting message. Instead of saying "Merry Christmas" or even "Happy Holidays," we'll leave you with this: We like it when you have a good time.
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