Comments byNaruto_Uzumaki1,Onji_dreamlover,Ikki_nerdystar,MadameBouche,Bloom_dreamgirl,TheHyeCircus,& Dustin(don’t forget 'KorraIsBack!')

One thing that people who will have seen the special on TV might be thinking as they wade their way through the synopsis is that it doesn't match up with what they saw on TV. Why is this?

"Arthur's Perfect Christmas" also played on PBS in 2? versions, one with pauses for pledge breaks (as I saw it, and as Aonarr did -- see our "Aftermath" comments), and I would imagine, a version without the pledge breaks.

Anyway -- the point is, that in order to fit in commercials/pledge breaks, some of the special was edited for time... so bits got missed out. Here's what didn't appear on the CBC version -- I don't really know how complete this is -- let me know if there's anything missing so I can fill in the gaps.

KorraIsBack

At the start, Arthur sung a song, which appears on the CD singing about how this year, he's going to have a "perfect" Christmas -- hence the title of the special. Which helps to explain why Arthur is especially upset once things start going wrong

Everyone has to explain some holiday mumbo-jumbo to the whole class. We saw George with hanging ornaments on his antlers, explaining his native (Swedish) holiday, St. Lucia. We see his relatives celebrating it. George passes some stinky traditional fish around the class; everyone hates it except for Buster who eats it (obviously).	SCREENSHOT FROM PBS SITE: George explains how in Sweden, children dress up in white, and have a big parade to mark St. Lucia.
	SCREENSHOT FROM PBS SITE: Everyone comes out to the big parade, which is December 13.
	SCREENSHOT FROM PBS SITE: One of George's cousins, dressed as St. Lucia.

After netting a record 37 presents this year, Muffy has a big song routine where she laments about not being able to share her presents with Francine, (since Francine and her have had a spat about Christmas vs. Hannukah.) a song includes the lyrics...

I got a club house,

I think it's the biggest in the world.

I'd be the princess

And Francine, a serving girl

It'd be so neat,

And if she was sweet,

I might even let her be queen...

The song goes on as Muffy laments about not being able to play with her new presents with Francine, presents which include among other things, video games, a twenty-thousand piece puzzle, and a miniature submarine.

The music to "What's the Use of Presents" sounded A LOT like "Beauty School Dropout" from Grease !

Bloom_dreamgirl was, uhh, less than complimentary about this song in her review of the special on her site... comments which netted him a complaint. :)

Francine's family sing a Hanukkah song. I believe the part with her and Muffy going to the theatre together was expanded too.

SCREENSHOT FROM PBS SITE: The Frensky family at Francine's place.

The version that aired on the CBC misses out the conclusion of Binky's tale -- he eventually does go to the soup kitchen with his parents to help feed homeless people, only instead of baking them something, he takes some store-bought cookies with him, and pretends he baked them.	SCREENSHOT FROM PBS SITE: Binky plays it safe.
The homeless people are more happy to have something to eat than to worry about the origin of the cookies.	SCREENSHOT FROM PBS SITE: A homeless man about to enjoy a cookie.
Notice how many homeless & hungry people there are in Elwood City.	SCREENSHOT FROM PBS SITE: Binky and his Dad making a difference.

At the end of the special, Arthur wonders how his friends are getting on, and we see what they're doing. We then see a series of short scenes which include Binky feeding the homeless, as just described, as well as:

We see Brain's family celebrating Kwanzaa as they sing a Kwanzaa song.	SCREENSHOT FROM PBS SITE: Brain and his parents decorate the house for Kwanzaa. There must have been addtional Kwanzaa coverage, but I didn't see the full version of the special.
We see George's family celebrating St. Lucia as they dance in their home. His Mother and his Father dance with each other, his (I think his uncle) dances with someone else and George dances with his sister dressed up as St. Lucia.	SCREENSHOT FROM PBS SITE: George's family celebrating St. Lucia.

The man dancing with the woman in George's family seemed to resemble Mr. Elkin who was one of Arthur's substitute teachers, HOWEVER, George's father was clearly shown in#60701 - "The Boy with His Head in the Clouds"! A mess up?

Arthur's song about Christmas being "perfect" is reprised at the end, and he sings again, concluding that although things didn't go as planned, things turned out well in the end. (As they usually do for Arthur.) One member of the Yahoo! Arthur Club said that Arthur's singing here was "beautiful".

Personally, I'd rather have watched more of these things than say, Arthur imagining himself in a parade for being oh-so-perfect, or Buster's "Baxter Day" song. Not that I have anything against Buster particularly -- it's just that Buster does the "alien" thing day in and day out -- this is a holiday special; why not concentrate on actual-factual holiday-related stuff?