Like Fruit Cake, the Yule Log Keeps on Giving

Every year, I write some short stories about the Christmas holidays, conjuring up memories of cold and frosty mornings and dashing down the stairs to the living room where I would be greeted by a dazzling light show – what seemed like a bajillion multi-color lights blazing on our Christmas tree, its long strands of tinsel twinkling from the reflection of those lights in the slightest breeze, and a blue, red, green and yellow color wheel spinning serenely before the tree, bathing it in a psychedelic light and putting the display way over the top.

In a piece I called, “A Christmas Ramble”, I made mention of my love of holiday television programming during those times, back when I was just a kid in the 1960s, and thought I’d share one remembrance from that story with you – a truly remarkable piece of history about a very odd but now traditional Christmas television offering.

I grew up in northern New Jersey just outside of New York City in the “Swinging Sixties”. During that time, I became an aficionado of Christmas programming, a true connoisseur of the genre. And it wasn’t just the classics I loved like the airing of the movies “Holiday Inn” or Alastair Sim’s version of “A Christmas Carol”. I would always search out and find the odd and off the wall stuff, and one of those programs became a staple in our household and has since become an iconic tradition all across the country.

For as many people love this show, there are just as many that ridicule it, but the story of how this show began is nothing short of programming genius. The show I’m talking about is the Yule Log.

It was a local independent station out of New York City - WPIX - that began the tradition. It was in 1966 when the President and CEO of the station, Fred Thrower, decided that he wanted to do something special for the residents of the city who couldn’t have fire places in their apartments. Additionally, he wanted to make sure that he could give as many of his employees at the station time off for the holiday.

With the permission of the city’s mayor, John Lindsay, Thrower sent a crew to the mayor’s home, Gracie Mansion, and filmed only a few seconds of a fire burning in the mansion’s ornate fire place. It is said that a rogue spark from the burning logs damaged a $4,000 rug that lay before the hearth during the filming.

That Christmas Eve, WPIX cancelled over $4,000 in advertising and the telecast of a local roller derby match to air the Yule Log. The resulting 17-second film would be looped over and over again for hours with holiday music played over the film. Incredibly, the show was a huge success and it ran every Christmas Eve and Christmas morning until it was finally cancelled in 1990. Following the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, the station brought the Yule Log back, digitally remastered, of course, and it has aired ever since.

Today, several satellite and cable companies have produced their own version of the Yule Log and you can actually by DVD’s of the show. An unlikely but remarkable holiday tradition that has thankfully survived.