The big-budget, overblown cash grab Christmas movies keep coming, but its the old school Christmas specials that endure. New generations still know A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, but us Gen X kiddos also were treated a very weird array of holiday season specials.

Do you remember any of these gems:

Nestor: The Long-Earred Christmas Donkey (1977)

You all know the Rankin/Bass specials with Frosty, Santa and even the always cool Miser Brothers, but there’s no trauma-inducer like Nestor. Based on the Gene Autry song, we get a bit of a dark tale for the Christmas season. Nestor’s mother dies to keep him warm, and the Roman Empire in power. Yet, the unloved and neglected “imperfect” Nestor eventually gets picked to transport Mary to Bethlehem. Take that, Rudolph! Also Roger Miller narrates this one, so that makes it worthy.

Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)

I long for the days when the worst thing to come out of the Star Wars Universe was this only-aired-once treat. The show was so bad, it is now iconic, and has hit such a nostalgic chord, you can find the entire special all over the Internet. This is despite George Lucas once say he wants to smash every bootleg copy of this thing out of existence. I sat through it once when it first aired. I was 8. That’s pretty much all I need. I will not subject you to most of this acid trip. I gotta give props to it being the first appearance of Boba Fett, as the animated segment was the only halfway decent part of this Life Day nightmare:

Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas (1978)

I love Muppet Christmas Carol, and think Michael Caine is the best Scrooge ever, but do you remember down-home fun of Jim Henson Company’s world of Emmet Otter? This one filled with catchy songs and nifty critters. It still holds up today! I had almost forgotten about this one until someone posted this song last week, and now I’m back to vibing to the wholesome tunes. Also, I want to design a t-shirt for the Riverbottom Nightmare Band should they ever launch a comeback tour.

A Cosmic Christmas (1977)

This was a Canadian made animated special about aliens landing on Earth to seek out the meaning of Christmas. There’s an off-the-wall Christmas goose, a very etherial tune by Karla Bonoff, and the three aliens more than resemble three other very significant gift-bringers.The spiritual undertones of this are very blatant, and I have to appreciate that in this “holiday special” world.

Since I can’t find a good clip from this, I’ll treat you to the entire 26 minute special that is all over YouTube:

Pee Wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special (1988)

We’ll jump ahead into the late 80s for this one, because I cannot overlook the insane party of Pee Wee’s Playhouse. The Christmas special has the most random cast of 80s centric guest stars ranging from Magic Johnson to Zsa Zsa Gabor to Charo, and it is something only the late great Pee Wee Herman could get away with. It also reminds us David Bowie and Bing were the most unusual performance of “Little Drummer Boy” on television. Grace Jones wins this one.

This holiday and Christmas season, rejoice Gen X, we had the weirdest and best Christmas specials, and thanks be the internet, we can still find most of them.