Strictly average movie

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I loved watching this magical program as a child. I was mesmerized by those puppets!According to the TV section of the Philadelphia Inquirer from that year, "The Spirit of Christmas" was first broadcast on December 22, 1951 and was aired 5 times that holiday season. The Wikipedia article and the blog source it quotes are wrong.

"The Spirit of Christmas" is a 27-minute short film from 1950, so this one is already over 65 years old. According to IMDb, it is the only effort by writer and director Mabel Beaton. The title makes clear that this is one for the festive season of course, but even if it may look like that, it is not an animated movie, but it is all about the marionettes in here. I am certainly a bit biased as this is not to my liking: the strange movements, the static face expressions etc. Admittedly, this one here handles these issues better than most others, so I was tempted to give it a better rating until eventually they included advertisement during the live action parts at the very end. Oh well, these were when the film really did hit rock bottom. The marionette parts were certainly better, also because they included some decent music and the narration wasn't too bad either. And of course the religious references (Bible) gave a bit of a purpose to the entire project, but on the one hand my subjective preference and on the other some absolute no-gos cannot be equalized by some of the better aspects. At least not for me. I do not agree with the high rating at all and give this one a thumbs-down. Watch something else instead.

Growing up in Havertown,Pa in the 50's + 60's, this Christmas special was much anticipated. I do not recall it playing more than once per season and we anxiously waited for it's showing.In the 60's and 70's many animated Christmas shows were aired and this one was forgotten.I was past 40 when I finally saw it again and was shocked to see it was in color!!! What a wonderful taste of my childhood this has given me.Enjoy it's simplicity. I have purchased several copies on DVD and sent them to family and friends. If you know of anyone from the Philadelphia area in their 50's , they would probably love this as a gift.They are not expensive and are,of course, inexpensive to send by first class mail.Now I'm showing it to my grandchildren.Time marches on,Merry Christmas.

I like so many others grew up watching The Spirit of Christmas in Pittsburgh. It was broadcast every year for a long time and then seemed to disappear. Two years ago, I was searching the internet for it which took a long time, because I didn't have a clue as to what it was called. I found a web site called TV Party that had a reference to it, and found a TV station in Philadelphia that gave it away as a promotion for a donation. Now here's the great news for us all, it's been released on DVD and even has extras! Type in The Spirit of Christmas on your search engine, and look for a site that says released on October 11, 2005. You can order it for $9.99Enjoy! Rich P.