Years before I actually started reading British comics I had heard of Kelly’s Eye, The Spider and Robot Archie, but had never heard of Spellbinder by Geoff Champion.  It started out as a fairly standard “runaway kid discovers ancestral home and bonds with a magical mentor” type strip but it got wilder and wilder as it went along until finally there were trips not just through time but alternative timelines (pretty heady stuff for a British kids comic in the early 70’s).  Just see what the strip does with the conventional “entertaining a bunch of orphans over Christmas” plot.

I’ve mentioned this one before; in the middle of the regular installment of an ongoing Robot Archie serial the action stops cold so the editors can with absolutely no explanation deliver to our heroes  a piping hot Christmas dinner with all the trimmings.  It’s very weird.

And finally, here’s a Christmas adventure with The Phantom Viking.