Father Knows Best (TV Series) The Christmas Story (1954) User Reviews

Great Christmas Episode

[swking-07300 · 10/10 · 20 December 2020]

For the 50's this is typical Christmas fare, but nonetheless it is a good heartfelt Christmas episode.

It's interesting to notice how the beginning of this episode is similar to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Heading out into the wilderness to cut down a Christmas Tree, the only one really happy is Dad. Catastrophe ensues. Heavy snow, car colliding with a snow bank....

It's pretty light hearted and somewhat predictable, but full of the Christmas Spirit.

While the Andersons and Nick are squatters, they are respectful of their interloping, and when Jim Anderson finds out that the cabin and the contents don't belong to Nick, he tells the Ranger that he will make things right with the owner.

If you like Christmas episodes, 50's sitcoms, and feeling good at Christmas, then this is for. you.

Merry Christmas to All!

A Very Communist and Evil Christmas

[KayMack23 · 3/10 · 25 December 2016]

Father wants to teach the children about materialism. They're stuck in a mountain cabin on Christmas Eve with no presents or anything. It ends up all being OK, because a homeless squatter manages to break in to other unoccupied, but well stocked cabins in order to steal "rich people"'s personal belongings to give as gifts to the children. So, happy ending is a thief disguises himself as Santa Claus and saves the day by providing a wonderful Christmas to all- wait what happened to the "materialism"? I guess the moral is, if you can't afford gifts for Christmas, steal them from rich people. The park ranger allows the squatter to make himself at home in any of the cabins because he's "a harmless old man". Didn't he just steal things from a bunch of different cabins? If a park ranger let some homeless thief sleep in a cabin I owned I'd be livid.

KayMack23 Said It All

[janet-conant · 1/10 · 31 October 2020]

I only saw this episode about a year ago on Peacock and couldn't have agreed more with KayMack review. I grew up with FKB but forgot this one. I thought it was really poorly written how that family would agree to go the night before Christmas to find a tree. How Dad puts up with Betty's whining about missing a party without pushing her into a snowbank was hard to swallow. Everything is hard to swallow like that old squatter who thinks he can give these people a Christmas with stolen items. It was so simplistic too having Kathy believe that Santa found her even in an abandoned cabin. Is that reindeer at the end? Way unbelievable could have been whimsical if better written.