Apple has streamed the Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas specials for free about a week before the holiday each year. This year Thanksgiving was free November 15-16 and Christmas will be free December 13th and 14th.

Do I need AppleTV? If so it ain't free.

No - Apple TV the streaming service is available on any device that has the TV app available, which includes Samsung, Sony, Vizio and LG TVs, Android TVs, Roku devices, Xfinity, Google TV and Play Station. You can also play in a modern web browser.

They used to (a year or two ago?) host them for free so you didn’t need a sub, is that no longer true?

(Sucks about the pbs part though, didn’t realize they’d stopped that.)