The Snowman
This charming British animated short film (it's just 23 minutes long) is a 1982 production of London's Channel 4, based on the classic children's book by Raymond Briggs and crafted with a colored-pencils-on-paper look, like fluffy, hand-drawn illustrations. Small children should be entranced by the story of a small boy in rural England whose lovingly constructed snowman comes to life and takes him flying over the white-blanketed landscapes, in a beautiful rotoscoped (traced) sequence based on live-action flying footage. Part of the charm of the film is the gentle, everyday quality of its fantasy adventures: the snowman is invited in to try on clothes and play with the Christmas decorations, then plays host to the boy at a party in the woods, at which his snowy relatives do English country dances. This is one of the very few Christmas tapes on the market that really deserves to be a holiday perennial, a gentle fable of friendship and the power of imagination. --David Chute Father Christmas
This irreverent Santa breaks from tradition in many ways. He has no Mrs., owns only four reindeer, and decides to convert his sleigh into an airborne motor home for a pre-Christmas vacation. He finds France too snooty, Scotland too cold, and Las Vegas just right. Tanned and rested, he returns to the North Pole in time to sort through the mail, pack up the toys, and hit the skies. Like the Santa of the Raymond Briggs book on which this 24-minute video is loosely based, he narrates his own story (splendidly voiced by Los Angeles stage actor William Dennis Hunt). But fans of the 1973 book will find the animated version far less cranky than the original. Although the book was aimed at ages 4-8, the video may have a wider appeal, depending on how you feel about the children seeing Santa gambling at the casino tables, dreaming of bikini-clad babes, and suffering a bout of diarrhea. --Kimberly Heinrichs
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