My friend Dennis wrote a blog about his favorite Christmas movies and it inspired me to write a similar one:

My childhood favorites were "It's a Wonderful Life" and "A Miracle on 34th St." "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was my favorite stop-action animation movie and "Frosty the Snowman" was my favorite standard animation. And as far as contemporary movies, none can hold a leg-shaped lamp to "A Christmas Story".

But my favorite show at Christmas-time as a young boy was actually on the radio. When my father and I would be out and about running errands he would let me sit and listen to the end of the "Cinnamon Bear radio show" episode before leaving the car to go into the store even if there was several minutes to go. I always assumed those red gummy cinnamon bear candies were made to be like the Cinnamon Bear on the radio. Maybe they were originally - who knows. And one of my very favorite things to do at Christmas, as big an event as meeting Santa, would be going to the Frederick and Nelson department store to meet the Cinnamon Bear - who I was convinced without a doubt was the "real" Cinnamon Bear from the radio show.

As an adult I don't recall anyone ever mentioning the Cinnamon Bear. I'm just curious if listening to the Cinnamon Bear radio show was a part of anyone else's Christmas tradition. I had thought "did I just dream this whole thing up", but after a little web-browsing, I found this on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cinnamon_Bear

Here's a snipet of that article: "The story focused on Judy and Jimmy Barton who must venture from their home to the enchanted world of Maybeland to recover their missing Silver Star that belongs on top of their Christmas tree. Helping on this quest for the missing star is The Cinnamon Bear, a stuffed bear with shoe button eyes and a green scarf. They meet other memorable characters on this quest, including the Crazy Quilt Dragon (who repeatedly tries to take the star for himself) , the Wintergreen Witch, Fe Fo the Giant, and even Santa Claus. The episodes would air starting at Thanksgiving and would end at Christmas, with one episode airing each night. The show was created by a group of merchants as an advertising promotion, and was recorded in a hurry in just a few weeks. The radio show proved to be so popular that it is said to be broadcast by a station somewhere in the world every year during the holidays, even today. In fact, many malls had a Cinnamon Bear that children would tell what they wanted for gifts instead of a Santa, and he would show up in Christmas parades. The Cinnamon Bear remained popular especially in the Northwest, with Portland, Oregon often cited as a "Cinnamon Bear hotspot."