Ordinarily just the thought of a X-mas episode is enough to upset my digestive tract. This one however is pretty well handled thanks to Robert Easton's easy-going charm and expert way with dialect (I gather he was a dialect coach in Hollywood for a number of years.) Here he plays Chester's uncivilized yokel brother and it's fun to listen to the two trying to out-drawl each other. This is Chester's big chance to show what a cosmopolitan sophisticate he is by initiating his brother into the subtleties of city life. Of course, things don't go quite the way Chester plans them, with generally amusing results. For once, Matt has a strictly background role. I guess the producers felt there had to be some drama, so James Anderson's Grinch-like role was added. Never mind that he cartoonishly over-acts since we're not supposed to take him seriously, anyway.
A passing observation-- a December-like atmosphere is added by having the principals wear overcoats (right off the wardrobe rack) and walk across what looks like snow on the ground. Weather was a real factor in frontier life, especially in western Kansas as it blows across the high prairie from the distant Rockies. The dramatic potential of this factor is sorely missing from most productions and amounts to a critical absence in frontier re-creations, probably for budgetary reasons. One exception in the early Gunsmoke series-- the memorably noirish The Cabin (1958). Anyway, this light-hearted entry demonstrates at least a potential use.