Guardians’ Day
Christmas Champions’ Day
Raise a Toast to the Protectors of Christmas
About Guardians’ Day
If yesterday was a tribunal, today is a victory parade. Guardians’ Day is devoted to honoring the brave souls—real and fictional—who saved Christmas from its many perils. We begin in earnest: raise a glass to Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, and the architects of America’s Christmas revival. Yes, I know, they already have a day dedicated to them, which is why, without skipping a beat, we pour one out for ALF, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and that one Saved by the Bell episode where Zack Morris somehow prevents the destruction of a shopping mall Christmas display. Because history repeats itself, especially in syndication.
Ways to observe
(A) Low effort
Toast a historical figure who helped preserve Christmas.
(B) Recommended
Read an excerpt from A Christmas Carol, The Night Before Christmas, or an early American Christmas sermon while holding hands around the dinner table. Then pivot immediately to watching a holiday episode from your childhood where someone “saves” Christmas.
(C) High effort
Stage a full Guardians’ Day Ceremony. Assign roles: Master of Revels, Christmas Historian, Minister of Sitcoms. Read historical documents with reverence, then re-enact key scenes from classic holiday specials.
Inspiration
Christmas has always needed defenders. In the early 19th century, cultural guardians like Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, and Clement Clarke Moore stepped in to rescue the holiday from obscurity, reimagining it as a domestic idyll filled with warmth, charity, and cheer. (For more on their heroic efforts, see Christmas Idols, Day 44, and A Christmas Carol Day, Day 49.) We honor them here, alongside the lawmakers who made Christmas a national holiday, and the artists, advertisers, and dreamers who kept its image alive in the collective imagination. But Guardians’ Day isn’t just about literary saviors. It’s also for the sitcom Santas, cartoon cats, and puppet-aliens who stepped in when Christmas was in peril—on screen, at least. In the 80s and 90s (less so now), every show felt compelled to produce a December special, no matter how ill-fitting. And so, with full hearts, we salute the characters who saved Christmas through pure determination, confused holiday magic, or one last impromptu performance at the mall. We don’t remember most of the plots. That wasn’t the point. What mattered was the thrill of watching your favorite characters suddenly care about something you cared about. For 22 minutes, your world and theirs aligned, and that transdimensional Christmas spirit was more than enough.
Adornments
Watch
A Garfield Christmas Special (1987)
Garfield spends Christmas on the farm with Jon’s family and discovers surprising warmth amid the slapstick. Between comedic bits (like Garfield’s gift-greed fantasies) lie tender moments: Garfield bonding with Jon’s lonely grandmother over memories of Christmases past, or Odie secretly crafting a gift for Garfield.
ALF’s Christmas Special (1987)
A two-part holiday episode. ALF gets misplaced at Christmastime and ends up masquerading as a toy in a hospital children’s ward. In the span of an hour, he befriends a terminally ill little girl and even prevents a despairing man from making a tragic choice on Christmas Eve.
Family Matters: “Miracle on Elm Street” (1994)
Young Richie brings home a homeless man named Ben for the holidays, upsetting the Winslow family until the stranger begins teaching them about generosity.
Listen
I Still Believe in Santa Claus by New Kids on the Block
This pop ballad from the late–80s boy band era is equal parts cringe-worthy and endearing. Mostly cringe-worthy.
Read
Christmas: A Biography by Judith Flanders
An erudite but highly readable cultural history of how Christmas evolved from medieval feast to global holiday. Flanders focuses on the 19th-century revival led by authors like Washington Irving and Charles Dickens, but also explores how modern forces like advertising and pop culture reshaped it.