Christmas Movie Marathon, Day 22 — The Year Without A Santa Claus (1974)

I don't know about you guys, but I get super excited about the claymation Christmas specials they show on TV. Maybe one year I'll actually break down and buy the box set, but meh, I really just love The Year Without a Santa Claus above all the others. I just want to see the Heat and Snow Misers sing their songs! They are probably the most entertaining thing about it. That and maybe the cute rendition of Blue Christmas, I mean, come on.

For some reason I assumed that these specials came out before 1974, just because it's stop motion and all that jazz, but I don't know. I've never looked up the history of them. (*looks up short history of TYWASC*) Apparently, it premiered on ABC in 1974 and was played every year for Christmas until the early '80s. Cool. Mickey Rooney plays Santa!

Basically, one freaking tiny angry doctor dude comes over to make sure Santa was okay, and he makes a remark that no one on Earth believes in him or the spirit of Christmas anymore and that makes Santa completely put a halt to the pinnacle of his existence each year. That one dude! Well, that and Santa's bad attitude. The wife seems to think that she can pretend to be Santa, then promptly gives up on that idea and makes the elves do her bidding. They are charged with the task of finding "proof" that people still believe, somehow. And then the guys that control the weather sing catchy songs about themselves and they are brothers and their mom is Mother Nature and they agree to make it snow in the southern United States (HAH!) on Christmas Day. It does. Santa tells some people he's Santa, and then the children give him presents and the entire world swoons. Basically it's adorable.

I've been watching these since I was pretty young, and I guess with this show, as it is with any classic Christmas movie that people watch every year, it's part nostalgia and a little bit of entertainment that keeps people coming back. Like, a lot of the movies are really not the best movies ever, but it feels like they are all we have to choose from when the season arrives. I sometimes wonder why movie people keep making Christmas-themed movies, but I guess they hope that they will become one of those holiday classics that people will pull out year after year after year, and after 20 years they can re-release it with a golden wrapper and people will buy it again as the "Anniversary Edition."

/endrant

But it's true. I mean, I guess I didn't realize how many there were and how easy it is to get sick of the ones you really don't like, because they will almost never go away. Some poor soul like me will pull them out for the first time one Christmas and add it to the list of movies to watch to get them into the holiday spirit.

I hope you all had a really great Christmas,

Stephanie