In this special, which of course I never saw, Paul Lynde plays an 1890s family man whose house gets invaded by wacky relatives on Christmas Eve. The special aired only once. According to more culturally-literate friends who have seen this on YouTube, Lynde delivers the campiest version of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” ever. My thirteen-year-old self in 1977—a wannabe straight boy who air-guitared to sexist crap on the radio—would’ve hated this version, and so would’ve my Aunt Inez, with whom my family still lived, and who hated what she called “silliness.” Sometimes, I can see her point.
Copyright © 2020 by David V. Matthews
