A Rick Steves Christmas

Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 12.13.05 | 11:55 PM ET

All the big stars have done at least one TV Christmas special: Jackie Gleason, Charlie Brown, Nick and Jessica. This year, finally, a travel writer has gotten into the act. PBS Europe travel guru Rick Steves has produced Rick Steves’ European Christmas, and it’s airing this month on PBS stations around the United States. The show features Steves taking in holiday celebrations in seven locales, from Italy to Norway. He and his family play in the snow and sit down to delicious dinners, and watching it makes you wish the dollar wasn’t in the tank and that you, too, could afford a winter jaunt to Europe.

But you can’t. So you heat up the leftover burrito in your fridge, crack open a beer and flip on PBS, wishing you were not stuck in your San Diego apartment, trying to finish a freelance assignment for which you won’t be paid for at least a month, and ranting in your weblog, but instead enjoying cheese fondue and a glass of gewurztraminer, and living large, in the Swiss Alps.

I’m glad I got that off my chest.

Steves’ Web site features an article he wrote about producing the show, as well as a schedule of airtimes around the nation.