Publication Date: 12-24-2025

Arthur’s Perfect Christmas (2000) review

Dir. Greg Bailey

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★★

“Sometimes, the thing you hope for, isn’t the thing you get. But after today, I just have to say, this was the best Christmas yet!” – Arthur, Arthur’s Perfect Christmas

If you’ve spent any length of time conversing with me in person, or even online, you are probably already aware of my love for Arthur. There was never a children’s show as multilayered and dimensional before it, and there will never be another one like it. For 25 season and over 250 episodes, Arthur told many stories about its plucky eight-year-old anthropomorphic brown aardvark across hundreds of episodes before pivoting and giving its wide-variety of supporting characters equally thoughtful development arcs. It’s one of the only children’s shows to tackle a cornucopia of serious topics such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, and more.

Arthur’s Perfect Christmas was the show’s first hour-long special, four years into its run, back in 2000. It remains a staple of PBS’ holiday programming lineup, and has been a favorite of mine even well into adulthood, in between viewings of Bad Santa and Santa’s Slay, of course.

Over the course of 50 blink-and-you-miss-it minutes, Arthur’s Perfect Christmas deftly juggles a swath of characters and narratives, defying the odds in making sure each leaves its mark. It also provides children with some education on the history of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, with some morsels of Scandinavian holiday traditions thrown in there for good measure. Indeed, it is a musical, but the songs are bolstered by unconventional melodies and often affecting lyrics, fittingly sung by the children themselves.

Arthur, in particular, desperately wants to do several things this Christmas; most notably, he wants snow on the big day, and he wants to wow his parents with special gifts. He wants to give his mom the same glass bird of hers he broke over the summer. Per usual, his little sister D.W. desires to be a pain in the ass, writing letter-after-letter to Santa, and whining about wanting a hot new talking cat toy. When his trip to Florida is stalled due to his truck breaking down in Elwood City, Arthur’s Uncle Fred drops in on the Reads’ family Christmas with his ill-behaved dog, Rory.

Meanwhile, Arthur’s friends all have a plethora of things happening as well. For one, Francine intends to celebrate Hanukkah with her family, which conflicts with Muffy’s massive Christmas party. No matter how much Francine tries to tell Muffy she won’t make her party, Muffy, predictably, doesn’t listen. She’s too wealthy and spoiled to consider the feelings of others, least of all the fact that the end of December sees a confluence of many holidays occurring at the same time.

Then there’s Buster, whose arc is the saddest of them all. Christmas is a tough time for his single mother, who strives to give her son the best holiday possible, but drives herself sleep-deprived and overworked in the process. Buster quietly wishes Christmas wasn’t such a big deal in the culture, to which Arthur and the Brain suggest he create his own holiday, where him and his mom could do whatever they like. Cue the incredibly inspiring musical number “Baxter Day,” which hits closer to home for me ever since I lost my own mother; I’ve come to learn that my girlfriend, Catherine, and I basically celebrate our own version of “Baxter Day” every holiday, which too makes me smile through the tears.

Arthur’s Perfect Christmas treats viewers to original Christmas numbers from the cast. The strangest one, frankly, is Muffy’s song “What’s the Use of Presents?,” where she comes to terms with Francine telling her off. It’s such a darkly funny number because while Muffy laments the fact that her Christmas presents aren’t special, for she can’t share them with her friend, her daydreams of the two of them involve Francine doing some kind of grunt-work. Muffy was always the lousiest, most insufferable character in the show — anyone who went to public school knows the rich child who never got told “no” once in their life.

There are even a couple of pithy but equally catchy musical numbers in different languages, including “Sankta Lucia,” sung by a gaggle of Swedish residents in a flashback, and “Nu Är Det Jul Igen,” performed by George and his family.

Arthur’s Perfect Christmas has more depth, humor, and culture in 50 minutes than most feature-length holiday movies. It’s a lovingly made, colorfully animated special that retains both the thematic and stylistic beauty of a series that went on to become one of the longest-running cartoon series of all-time, and even then, it ended too soon.

NOTE: As of this writing, Arthur’s Perfect Christmas is available to watch on PBS Kids’ YouTube channel, free of charge.

Voiced by: Michael Yarmush, Oliver Grainger, Daniel Brouchu, Jodie Resther, Melissa Altro, Steven Crowder, and Bruce Dinsmore. Directed by: Greg Bailey.