The Crisis of Haunting Christmas

Andy Williams popularized a classic Christmas song, entitled It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. Some holiday stories fuse Halloween and Christmas themes together. Recall a famous line, “There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long long ago.” Remember Charles Dickens novel, A Christmas Carol, a great example of it. Ebenezer Scrooge, an old penny pincher faces Christmas past, Christmas present, and Christmas future. Jacob Marley, Scrooge's ex-business partner awakens him during midnight. Scrooge listens to chains drag and remorseful allegations. A vision terrifies Scrooge; he sees an invalid, Tiny Tim's death, and it forces him to change his miserly ways.

A Christmas Carol appears in many motion picture remakes including animated versions. The chart list below samples several of them through the years among many others.

Toy-like characters appear galore in Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, adapted into an MGM motion picture that starred Judy Garland. It visually appeals like a Halloween-Christmas holiday movie. The Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman and Cowardly Lion. Colorful heroic characters protect Dorothy. They all share personal problems among one another. Strange characters inhabit Munchkin Land and Emerald City. They all dread a bad witch, The Wicked Witch of the West, a great film classic Halloween witch model. She wears a tall coned black hat and features a long hooked nose, and green skin. She flies on a broom stick.

Dr. Seas wrote How the Grinch stole Christmas, a classic Christmas tale. The Grinch, a miserable green monster, despises everything related to Christmas. He masterminds a plot to spoil Christmas. The Grinch disguises himself in a Santa suit and dresses up his dog max as a reindeer. The Grinch robbed Who-Ville of all their toys, presents, and food. He tells lies to disappointed Cindy-Lou Who, a young child. Who-Ville gather together and sing Christmas carols without gift wrapped presents and food. The Grinch learns that love among family and community rise above material possessions. He changes into a good man. He carves Christmas roast for his new Who-Ville friends.

Tim Burton’s animated The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) includes traditional Halloween characters and honors Christmas. It's recognized as the ultimate Halloween-Christmas animated feature. Jack Skellington, a pumpkin king of Halloween Town, discovers Christmas Town, and attempts to influence his home town to embrace their holiday concept. He feels bored terrifying everyone on Halloween and kidnaps Santa Claus. His monsters slowly adapt to Jack’s new idea about Christmas tradition. Jack looks stunned one of his enemies kidnaps his girlfriend and Santa Claus. Jack masquerades as Santa Claus and humorous results occur.

Folk tales around the world set-off a story tradition that varied each time someone retold a tale. The Grimm Brothers gathered many German fairy tales, and many other lands inspired for a compiled huge collection. Hans Christian Anderson's wonderful imagination wrote original fairy tales and ingenious fantasy elements.

Grimm's Fairy Tales popular tales, often read at Christmastime, explore darkness versus light themes. Heroes battle villains, defeat them, and earn beautiful damsels love. They inspired a very successful animated feature released from Walt Disney Productions. The Grimm tales entitled "Snow White and Rose-Red" and "The Glass Coffin" provided inspiration, two different tales than the Disney version.

Walt Disney’s animated Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, often lit-up big screens during Christmas time. An evil queen asks a huntsman to kill Snow White, but his good heart withholds his stabbing knife. He tells her to run away. She flees through a dark eerie forest. Her mind imagines the worst. forest animals befriend her, early morning, and atmospheric mood lightens up. Snow White sleeps in the Seven Dwarves' house. The little men dance and perform yodel songs. She sings them a personal love song about the prince. Later, the evil queen transforms herself into an old hag, prepares a poison apple, and endangers Snow White. The black magic spell looks visually chilling. The witch frightens her large black raven. The storyline shifts between good and evil. Prince Charming kisses Snow White on the lips while she sleeps in a glass coffin. He tips the scales for goodness once and for all.

Sleeping Beauty, another Disney animated feature, includes a classic battle between light and darkness. Three colorful fairies' wands create magic. Wicked Queen Maleficent puts an evil spell on Princess Aurora and entrances her into pricking her finger on the spinning wheel. The fairies put a spell on the whole kingdom until she reawakens; they try to prevent King Hubert and King Stephan from learning about the tragedy. A cold snowfall spell puts the whole kingdom to sleep. The mood evokes a Christmas time feeling. The good witch of the east cast a similar spell of reversal on Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tinman, and the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz motion picture. She awakened them from the evil witch’s poisonous poppy field. Snow melts into water that's considered a pure element.

Maleficent transforms into a fire-breathing dragon and the film engages in Halloween elements once again until Prince Phillip kills it and saves Princess Aurora. Sleeping Beauty includes cute animals like the red caped owl and a romantic Tchaikovsky waltz, Once upon a Dream.

Good Wizards versus evil Wizards creates fun epic adventures that draw viewers attention through Halloween time and the Christmas holidays. J.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter adventures began with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The successful motion picture franchises adapted film versions of her popular novels. Lord of the Rings includes powerful good wizards whom fight evil powerful sorcerers. Harry Potter and his friends attend magic school to become wizards and encounter ambitious evil minded wizards. Both films present excellent examples about power and darkness (evil) that the power of light (good) defeats.

Harry Potter trained at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and arrived there for the Christmas holidays. The Great Hall of Hogwarts features 12 enormous Christmas trees, holly, mistletoe, and armored suits sing Christmas carols. Fairies fly around Christmas trees. Professor Albus Dumbledore gives Harry an Invisibility. cloak that once belonged to Harry’s deceased father.

A chilling backstory piques Harry’s interest. The young boy’s birth parents became good wizards and an evil wizard named Voldemort killed them. The evil wizard wants to kill Harry Potter. A prophesy claims Harry shall become more powerful than the villain.

The potion master, Severus Snape, harbors mischievous villainess motives. Harry learns Snape wants to steal a valuable possession guarded by a three-headed dog.

Good Wizards, Hobbits, elves, and dwarves, entertain us at Christmas time. The Hobbit Frodo endures a perilous journey in Lord of the Rings. He inherits an ancient ring from his father that a dark lord named Sauron forges. The ring empowers control over Middle-earth's people. Frodo and his friends journeys to Mt. Doom. He wants to destroy the ring and drops it into a volcano' eternal fires at the crack of doom.

Santa’s elves, strange little men and evil boy characters appear in dark Christmas stories. Traditionally, parents tell their children that Santa Claus comes down the chimney every Christmas Eve and delivers presents. But elves usually don’t accompany him. They stay at the North Pole and get credit for helping Santa make toys. Little children could react frightened if they actually saw an elf. Elves show strange physical characteristics. One horror movie, Elves (1989), experiments with a Nazi experiment in which selective breeding creates elves during Christmas time. They grow into an evil super army and a renegade Santa Claus must stop them.

A few horror movies abuse Jolly Saint Nick's good name. What's more frightening than watching Santa Clause jump out of the dark as an ax killer? Slasher movies don't feel aren’t ashamed to disguise their bloody murderers as Santa Claus. Christmas Evil (1980), proves that. Santa’Sleigh (2005) features a demon that loses a bet with an angel and dresses-up as Santa. He delivers toys to kids. Once the bet expires, the demon terrorizes people again.

Black Christmas (1974) takes place during a sorority house Christmas break-in. A gruesome killer makes obscene phone calls and murders household sisters.

Don’t Open Till Christmas (1984) focuses on a psychopath who murders different men dressed up as Santa Claus.

Jack Frost (1996), a serial killer genetically mutates into a monstrous snowman who kills people. He seeks revenge against a sheriff who arrested him.

A Christmas Carol and How the Grinch Stole Christmas targets the holiday season and share similar themes. It's clear Charles Dickens' classic novel inspired the Grinch. Most Disney animated films appear tailor made for Christmas time. All our beloved fantasy films originated rom folk tales and many became popularized fairy tales. Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, magical holiday movie favorites don't entirely celebrate Christmas. Horror film production companies seek opportunities to lure theater goers during the holiday season. They risk famous beloved Christmas icons. Villainous Santa Clauses already appeared in many horror movies. It's a challenge to develop fresh horror Christmas movies.