Thank you PBS for sending us this DVD to review!

Growing up I enjoyed reading Garfield comics and watching the cartoons. This fifty-minute DVD comes with the Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes; the picture quality and 4:3 resolution tells me that not much has changed since they first aired. My kids enjoyed watching Happy Holidays, Garfield as they too love his comics.

Here’s a quick synopsis of each episode:

According to Garfield, Thanksgiving is about celebrating food and the more you eat the more grateful you’ll feel. Unfortunately, the vet put Garfield on a diet and Jon assigned Odie to keep him on task. While at Garfield’s check-up, Jon manages to get the vet to come over for a Thanksgiving dinner date. The problem is that Jon can’t cook and has a knack for talking his date to sleep. Fortunately, Jon’s grandmother saves the meal and Jon’s date. I was happy to see them take a moment of silence before the meal.

In the next cartoon Garfield is dreaming about Christmas and imagines Jon dressed as an elf and receives lots and lots of presents because that’s what Christmas is all about. When Garfield wakes up he finds out that instead of eating all the lasagna he wants, he has to go to Jon’s family farm. The family gets to enjoy a nice meal and Jon’s brother says grace before they eat. Jon’s grandmother gives Odie and Garfield some table scraps. After dinner, the family decorates the Christmas tree and enlists Garfield to put the star on top of it. While Jesus isn’t mentioned as the reason for Christmas, in the end Garfield acknowledges that Christmas is about loving more than giving or getting.