In some respects it's all too easy for me to take the 1982 animated masterpiece The Snowman for granted, because as far as I'm concerned, it's always been there. I was born into a world in which the short was still fairly young, but already there was a firmly-entrenched cultural worship of it, and growing up it was an inescapable part of my Christmases, as intrinsic to the season as holly, ivy and the Wizzard cash register. But this is not the case for the short that could be described as its first real successor. Despite the positive reaction to The Snowman in 1982, and how much of a lucrative merchandising property it remained in ensuing years, it took the better part of a decade for anybody to attempt any kind of subsequent festive animation based on the works of Raymond Briggs (I think we can all agree that When The Wind Blows from 1986 was aiming for a very different demographic). I'm old enough to personally remember when it was announced that The Snowman was finally getting a follow-up, a spin-off focusing on a character who made a small but all-important cameo in the 1982 film. The Snowman was a completely dialogue-free experience (save for that bemusing prologue in certain broadcasts where David Bowie appears and introduces it as something that happened to him), but here our protagonist was to be given a voice, courtesy of comedian Mel Smith. Father Christmas was directed by Dave Unwin and debuted on Channel 4 on 24th December 1991; I was watching, and I've never forgotten the gleeful anticipation I felt seeing it fresh and new, forever cementing the film as a nostalgic favourite of mine.
By Briggs' standards this is a rather jolly old special. No death and no heartbreak of any variety, just a comedic 25-minute window into the private life of Santa and what he does on the 364 nights of the year when his uncanny talents for flight and infiltration aren't in hot demand. Turns out, Father Christmas (Briggs' version of the legendary gift-bearer is a Brit, and it's established at one point that this is the moniker he prefers) gets as worn down by the daily grind as the next person, and requires a vacation every now and then. As an added bonus, he doesn't have to worry about the cost of travelling - all he needs to do is convert his trademark sleigh into a caravan and fly to whatever destination takes his fancy. Still, FC is a fickle tourist and it doesn't take many inconveniences to convince him he'd be better off elsewhere. The first half of the special follows FC as he travels from locale to locale, hopping around from a campsite in France, to a coastal town in Scotland and finally a glitzy hotel in the USA - Las Vegas, Nevada, more specifically (yes, Santa has a thing for showgirls and gambling, although he isn't particularly good at the latter) - before returning home at the end of the summer to find a stack of letters from children already piling up in his doorway. From then on, he doesn't have time to even think about anything else other than preparing for the busy night ahead of him.
The special was an amalgamation of two separate Briggs books, Father Christmas (1973) and Father Christmas Goes On Holiday (1975). The story has also been expanded ever-so-slightly so as to function as a loose sequel to The Snowman - at one point, FC takes a short break from his annual rounds to drop in on his enchanted snowmen friends at their Christmas bash, where the young David Bowie (yes, I know that "officially" his name is James, but I'm not calling him that) and a familiar frozen cohort are also in attendance. Upon seeing them, FC quips, "Glad you could make it again...the party, I mean, not your Snowman!" Given how much childhood trauma and emotional devastation was unleashed by the Snowman's untimely demise at the end of the aforementioned film, that really seems a bit flippant to me, but the very implication that he was reincarnated on subsequent Christmases and reunited with Bowie certainly helped take the sting off. This isn't the only point in the special where the story intersects with another of Raymond Briggs' properties - there's another, much subtler nod elsewhere in FC's adventures, with potentially darker ramifications, but we'll hold off on that for now.
Briggs' story offers a fairly unique take on the Santa mythos, in that his Saint Nicholas is depicted as a more humanised figure than we're accustomed to seeing in our seasonal media. For one thing, he's not much of a Saint - indeed, he has one or two filthy habits that might even rub some modern sensibilities the wrong way (see below). This Santa is human like the rest of us, meaning that he shits and pisses like the rest of us (and, in his case, his intestines are seriously ill-equipped for an over-indulgence of gourmet French cuisine - I'm not 100% certain, but I think this may be the only animated family special in which Santa suffers from a bout of explosive diarrhoea). He's also a bit of a grump and is constantly muttering under his breath about everything and anything that gets under his skin ("Blooming" being his favourite adjective). The pivotal humor, though, is in the extremely wry manner in which Briggs' Father Christmas is shown functioning within the mundane realities of every day life. This Santa doesn't live in the far-off regions of the North Pole; instead, Briggs proposes that there is something every bit as magical in the notion that, for the other 364 days of the year, Santa could be just your typical bloke next door (albeit easily recognisable to his legions of young beneficiaries through his portly figure and fluffy white beard). He lives in a nondescript English neighbourhood with nary an elf in sight, and if Mrs Claus was ever involved then she either died or packed up long ago (there is a portrait of a woman on his wall, widely speculated to be the departed Mrs Claus, which I guess tells its own sad unspoken story, but this is never confirmed). Magical flying reindeer are an indispensable part of the Santa lore even in Briggs' (relatively) down-to-earth vision, so FC does have a couple of those hanging out in a shed in his backyard. Otherwise, his sole companions are the nameless black cat and Jack Russell terrier who wait devotedly on the sidelines for FC to return from his numerous adventures; FC treats them with a genuine affection, demonstrating that, for all his gruffness, he's a softie deep down inside. Although perhaps that much is already evident in what he's willing to do for the world's entire young populace by flying out every night before Christmas and leaving them all presents, a profession that's here regarded as as matter-of-fact as anything else about his daily existence. It's not at all clear what higher power, if any, tasks FC with completing such a gargantuan endeavor year after year - for all we know, he's compelled to do this simply because he's that much of a philanthropist and delights in bringing the children of Earth a bit of seasonal magic and joy, even if it comes at a conspicuous cost to himself. It only happens once a year, but it is, nevertheless, an obligation that dominates his life throughout the remaining 364 days. And as much as FC might persistently grumble about that fact, in the end we sense that he wouldn't have it any other way.
Although Father Christmas is by and far the most gentle of the Raymond Briggs animations, there is an understated sadness in the subtle implications that FC's devotion to his singular profession prevents him from leading the kind of ordinary life with which he intermittently flirts. I suspect that this is why there's no room for Mrs Claus in Briggs' version of the mythos - this Santa is a decidedly lonely individual who isn't able to get close to and form relationships with other people, in part because his job places such heavy demands on his time, but also because he has a secret identity to keep under wraps. This is a major factor in why he's unable to settle for long in any of his chosen vacationing spots; remaining an anonymous tourist isn't an easy task when you've got one of the most recognisable mugs on the planet. The dilemma is particularly salient during his time in Scotland, where he visits a pub and does a pretty good job of integrating with the locals, only to be reminded almost immediately of how badly he risks letting his guard down when he's identified by a passing bairn. This isn't exactly The Last Temptation of Santa, but the closing sequence, which shows the exhausted and solitary FC retiring to his prosaic bedroom while the world around him wakes up excitedly to a brand new Christmas morn, is a surprisingly poignant means of rounding off such a light-hearted narrative. He does monumental work and is loved and admired the world over, but strictly from a distance; the man himself exists purely on the sidelines, a total unknown. And that's fine - one gets the impression that he's perfectly happy with just his dog and his cat and his bottle of brandy from Uncle Bob. All the same, the number of parties and celebrations happening in the world that FC brushes up against but can never be a part of gives you an idea of how much he's sacrificed in order to make this work. Even his stopover at the snowmen's shindig is cut short by an urgent last minute delivery to Buckingham Palace.
Briggs' take on the legend is charming and refreshing, but it does leave a few lingering questions about how this FC operates that probably won't bother the special's target audience, yet inevitably plague my less credulous adult brain. For one thing, it's never established how he makes a living in this universe. True, you could query how any version of Santa manages to be financially viable, but this one has a penchant for some seriously splashy indulgences, and I'm wanting to know how he finances his expensive French lunches and luxury hotel stays in Vegas. Moreover, with the elves and the big fancy workshop taken out of the equation it's not explained where the sleigh-load of toys he delivers every year even comes from; he simply has them ready on the night in question, and that's that. If the implication is that he buys them himself then that's an even bigger drain on his seemingly endless pocket. And who puts up his reindeer during his tenure in Vegas? Is nobody bothered by the fact that he's bypassed customs to bring two unquarantined animals onto French and American soil (again, Santa does that every year anyway, but here he's meant to be passing himself off as a regular tourist)? Some of these absurdities are weaved quite knowingly into the story - for example, the fact that numerous letters addressed only to "Santa Claus, The North Pole" are able to inexplicably find their way to this seemingly ordinary urban household. Clearly, there are greater forces at work here that we're not let in on, even if it is just some arrangement he has in place with the world's postal services - it's noteworthy that adults in this universe seem hilariously nonchalant about FC's existence; he shares an amiable exchange with a passing milkman after finishing his delivery, and at one point accidentally walks in on an adult party and is casually directed to the correct room (although the attendees do share a snicker over his cliched get-up).
Like The Snowman, the special went on to become a long-running fixture of Channel 4's seasonal line-up (it's certainly better-remembered than subsequent Briggs specials, like The Bear and Ivor The Invisible, which in spite of their merits seem to have fallen between the cracks; they still keep trying to push that sodding Snowdog, but we'll see how much he longer lasts). I do, however, know at least one person who showed the special to their children in recent years and felt that it had aged poorly, with its depiction of an "everyday" Santa who's into smoking, boozing, gambling and lusting after women (I assume that nobody has a problem with the diarrhoea, though?*). The "lusting after women" charge was a mite exaggerated in my view - there's a brief moment where FC is seen dancing with a chorus line of girls at a Vegas stage show and giggling inanely, and he later dreams about lying on a lilo and being surrounded by female admirers, but that's as far as it goes - but I'll concede that if this special was made today then FC's penchant for cigar-puffing would certainly be excised. The alcohol? Possibly - although, unlike in the US where children traditionally leave out milk and cookies for Santa, in the UK it is customary to leave him a glass of sherry, so there is an argument to be made that a boozing FC is all part of the mythos there anyway. The idea is that he's supposed to be a flawed Santa (though not a bad one), and giving him a handful of muted vices is one way to show that, but I suppose I can respect why some parents with young children might feel uncomfortable with seeing such behaviours modelled by a bastion of childhood innocence. Then again, between this and the Father Christmas we meet in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, who dispenses weapons to children and comes out with explicitly sexist spiel, I know which incarnation I prefer. Personally, I only have one real issue with how Briggs' Father Christmas is characterised, and it's much the same problem I had as a child back in 1991 - there's a scene where he goes to a dry cleaners to collect his iconic Cola Cola-endorsed reds and is unduly brusque to the woman who serves him. She's doing nothing more egregious than attempting to make pleasant conversation, and is visibly shocked by his reaction. This moment has never sat well with me - I get that the whole idea is that FC doesn't have much of a social life and therefore isn't always great in situations that require him to deal with people, but this is the only point in the special where he comes off as an unpleasant old geezer as opposed to a lovably gruff one. Seriously, FC, this a tough season for those working in customer service too; maybe show a little solidarity?
Although Father Christmas is in many respects a very different kind of seasonal special to The Snowman, it takes an obvious cue from its predecessor in one regard, in climaxing with a musical sequence as our protagonist takes to the skies and embarks on an epic overseas journey; here, we get a montage showing FC transporting presents to numerous households around the world, all while expressing his thoughts on the process in song. The song itself, "Another Blooming Christmas", is upbeat in tone
and blatantly not looking for comparison with the haunting and sombre
"Walking In The Air", but it is infectiously catchy. And the animation, in which FC and his reindeer are seen swooping across various snow-covered buildings and landscapes, while not as starkly immersive as that of its counterpart, genuinely does make me gasp in places.
Oh yes, and that slightly darker nod to another Raymond Briggs property I mentioned - when FC goes into the pub in Scotland, who else would be wetting their whistles in the backdrop but Jim and Hilda from Gentleman Jim and When The Freaking Wind Blows? Now, I'm perfectly fine and dandy with this special taking place within the same narrative universe as The Snowman, but for the sake of FC and his pets, and for young David Bowie and his snowman friend, let's hope that this is an alternate timeline where they didn't drop the bomb. The last thing we need to think of is Santa perishing in the nuclear winter.
* I say that, but actually, the upload of the special that can be found on YouTube right now has been carefully edited to remove the part where we actually see him on the john.
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