Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street is an hour-long Christmas television special based on the television series Sesame Street. It was originally broadcast on PBS on Sunday, December 3, 1978, and won the 1979 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program.

Synopsis
The opening features the inhabitants of Sesame Street enjoying an ice skating party. Big Bird has trouble skating, but a little girl gives him a hand, and he ends up doing very well. Bert falls victim to the antics of Ernie, Cookie Monster, and The Count as they play ice hockey with one of his shoes as the puck, clown around while barrel jumping, play a practical joke on him, and make him very dizzy in a game of Crack the Whip which somehow sent Oscar thrown into the air, tumbling down the stairs, through a couple of walls, and onto the sidewalk where Big Bird and his friend, Patty (a girl around age seven), catch up to him and get him up on his feet. After everyone leaves the ice rink, the story leads into three principal plotlines.

Oscar tells Big Bird and Patty that there will be no Christmas presents if Santa Claus is unable to go down narrow chimneys. Distraught, once they return to Sesame Street, they enlist the help of Kermit and Grover to ask children how he does it. Their responses vary. Big Bird even tries to experiment by having Mr. Snuffleupagus play Santa entering a pretend chimney, but he still does not find the answer. Patty tries to comfort him, but fails instead. He winds up trying to stay up all night on the brownstone's roof watching for Santa, but falls asleep while the residents of Sesame Street become very worried and start looking for him. During the search, Maria confronts Oscar for upsetting him. He says he was only teasing him and agrees to search for him. Back on the roof, at one point, sleigh bells and hoofbeats are heard, and a person's shadow falls over the dozing Big Bird. He is startled awake, but sees nothing unusual.

Meanwhile, in a retelling of The Gift of the Magi, Bert and Ernie want to give each other a Christmas present, but they each have no money. Bert trades away his prized paper clip collection to buy a soap dish for Ernie's Rubber Duckie, but Ernie has bartered that to buy Bert a cigar box for his paper clip collection. Mr. Hooper, the store owner, realizes what is happening and gives both their treasured possessions back while also reminding the audience that being Jewish, he doesn't celebrate Christmas but understands its spirit.

While all this is going on, Cookie Monster tries to write Santa and request cookies for Christmas. However, as he talks to himself about the many different kinds he wants, he gets hungrier and hungrier, absentmindedly devouring the instruments he is trying to use (a pencil, typewriter, and telephone). At the Robinsons' apartment, he laments that he was unable to contact Santa. Gordon reminds him that he might get what he wants if he leaves a plate of cookies for Santa.

At the end, when Big Bird comes down from the roof to warm up, Susan and Gordon make sure he stays. They comfort him by showing that there were indeed presents brought, but having him back is more important. Then Oscar appears and, stepping out of character, admits he's glad to have him back again...but, reverting back to character, only to ask him how the Easter Bunny hides all his eggs in one night! The special concludes with Susan and Gordon returning to their apartment to find that Cookie Monster has eaten the needles and decs off their Christmas tree. ("Scotch Pine delicious, but Douglas Fir give me heartburn!")

Songs

 * "True Blue Miracle"
 * "Keep Christmas With You (All Through the Year)"
 * "I Hate Christmas"
 * "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"

Trivia

 * When Big Bird and Patty check on Oscar following his ice skating accident, his original line was "Sure. I've been thrown out of better places than that." It was later redubbed in post-production to "Let's go back and do it again!", as the original line was deemed too adult.

Edits

 * In various reairings on PBS in the late 80s, the closing scene with Susan and Gordon finding that Cookie Monster ate most of their Christmas tree was cut.
 * On video releases since the mid 90s, the original 1978 Children's Television Workshop logo with Christmas music was cut. The 1995 VHS replaces it with the 1983 CTW opening logo, while the DVD releases start with no CTW logo at all.