The art style and voice characterizations are still incredibly rough in this episode, the eighth one produced. You see plenty of what Matt Groening calls "twister mouth" and a lot of the character designs are far from final (Barney has blond hair!). But it's scripted very well. I've watched the first four seasons of this series repeatedly, and with audio commentary, and frankly I love those seasons more than almost everything else that came after.
For most of America (at least those of us who weren't watching The Tracey Ullman Show), this was our first introduction to our favorite yellow family, and everything in this episode has been canonized. It'll be 25 years old later this month (just in case you didn't feel old enough, dear readers).
This episode, in case you haven't seen it lately, is the one where Bart gets a tattoo, and the removal wipes out the family's Christmas savings. Homer gets no Christmas bonus, and because he cares so much about his family (that wouldn't last long), he gets a second job as a department store Santa, and ends up betting his meager pay at the dog track.
As I said, the art is really rough, and the show's style hasn't quite congealed yet, but it's good fun. If the series had been cancelled during that first season, this special would still be well-regarded as a cult classic for comedy and animation fans.
If you didn't click through on that introductory link, be sure to do so before you leave. I hadn't visited The Simpsons Wiki before today, but it's pretty good. Every episode has its own page, with subpages for references and cast and crew credits.
As an episode of The Simpsons, I rate this 9/10.
As a Christmas episode, I rate this 10/10. The spirit, decor, and spiritual themes of the season are all present and well-conveyed.
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