It's our yearly Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar! This year, the theme is A Comic Strip Christmas! Each day will spotlight a notable comic strip, and at least three Christmas-themed comics from that strip. Today's comic is For Better or For Worse.

Every day until Christmas Eve, you can click on the current day's Advent Calendar post and it will show the Advent Calendar with the door for that given day opened, and you can see what the "treat" for that day will be! You can click here to see the previous Advent Calendar entries.

The drawing for this year's Advent Calendar, of Santa Claus giving out presents to comic strip kids (although instead of a present for Charlie Brown, his dog, Snoopy, gets a present instead), is by Nick Perks.

Day 19 is now opened (once opened, the door will feature an image from the featured comic strip)...

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RELATED: Little Orphan Annie Always Embraced Christmas No Matter How Dark Things Got

WHAT WAS FOR BETTER OR WORSE?

Launched in September 1979, Lynn Johnston's For Better or Worse quickly became one of the most successful comic strips of the 1980s, as Johnston's stories featuring the adventures of the Patterson family (Ellie, her husband John, their two children, Michael and Elizabeth, and their family dog, Farley) really resonated with readers based on how realistic Johnston captured the family dynamic in her strips (the strip was originally based on Johnston and her family, but it obviously went off on its own direction very quickly).

One of the most notable aspects of the For Better or Worse comic strip was the fact that the characters aged in real time, so we got to see Michael and Elizabeth grow up from young children until grown adults with families of their own by the time the series essentially ended in 2008 (in 1991, Ellie gave birth to a third child, April. In a sign of the divergence of the strip and reality, April debuted when Johnston learned that she could no longer have children, so her response was to give the Patterson a new baby). Farley, of course, being a dog in a strip where characters age in real-time, was a problem, and in one memorable sequence, Farley dies after rescuing April's life when she almost drowned (his heart gave out after saving her, Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure-style).

In 2008, Johnston sort of ended the strip, choosing to continue the strip by now focusing on the lives of the now adult children, while sort of re-using old strips, just with them now being about Michael and his family. That was a weird idea, and it didn't last long, and in 2010, she debuted a new approach, which was to release color reprints of the original series, only now the story would be retold from the beginning, just updated to modern times. In other words, we would see Michael and Elizabeth grow up again, only instead of it being in Canada in the 1980s, it would be Canada in the 2010s, so some of the strips would be modified to update the technology (like instead of an old Atari-style video game system, the kids would have a Wii, stuff like that). One of the interesting things was also the update of the parenting techniques, so, you know, instead of spanking like the original strips, they'd be edited into the kids having "time outs."

Johnston dealt with a number of serious topics over the years, and she was praised for trying to truly UNDERSTAND topics that she wasn't necessarily an expert on, but treating these topics with true respect. The comic was popular enough to get a number of animated specials over the years, as well.

RELATED: Beetle Bailey Dreamed of Home for the Holidays, Even When He Was on an Army Base

HOW DID FOR BETTER OR WORSE HANDLE CHRISTMAS?

As noted, there were a few TV specials based on the comic, including a 1985 Christmas TV special and then a 1992 one called "The Christmas Angel" ...

The 1990s-era TV specials forced Johnston to actually have to put more detail into the strips, so that the strips matched the more detailed animated shows.

Okay, as noted, the modern strips are basically reruns of older strips, so bear with me as we look at some "old" strips that are being presented as "new" now, which I'll place here, while the later ones in continuity (which technically came out BEFORE these ones) will go later on.

Here, we see a cute bit where little Elizabeth gets all religious about Christmas...

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Click here to enlarge the comic strip.

Really, that was sort of the approach of a lot of the early strips, which is that Elizabeth was the much more thoughtful, kind sibling. I mean that as no slight to Michael, as Michael wasn't a jerk or anything like that, but it was just that Elizabeth was clearly above and beyond in terms of her behavior. She was UNUSUALLY thoughtful and caring, like this Christmas strip...

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Click here to enlarge the comic strip.

Of course, Johnston herself was prone to very thoughtful moments, especially around the holidays, like this very cute bit where Ellie and John are ready to head out to some holiday parties when Ellie notes how great it is to spend the holidays with the people that you love, which then leads her to realize that they should just spend time at home with their kids...

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Click here to enlarge the comic strip.

This strip is a good example of what I was mentioning before about Michael and Elizabeth and their different depictions in the strip. Michael was not a jerk, really, but he was the kind of kid that you had to remind to be thoughtful. Once he was reminded, he WOULD be thoughtful, but it was less instinctual as it was for Elizaeth (it sort of reminds me of Peter Parker, whose first instinct is almost always self-interest, but then his sense of responsbility kicks in)...

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Click here to enlarge the comic strip.

Once April was born, we got some good "through the eyes on an innocent" stuff, that made Ellie also re-examine her thoughts on the holidays...

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Click here to enlarge the comic strip.

Finally, here is a strip with Michael and his wife (note, again, that this strip actually came out before the first five strips in reality, but it is set after them in continuity, since the above five are all restored reprints)...

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Click here to enlarge the comic strip.