Here comes Santa Claus: vintage Christmas gifs

Don't ask me to identify these. They are from an evil source. Late at night, or sometimes NOT late at night, I drag the lake bottom for videos like this. These are all black and white, and there is something just so depressing about Santa Claus videos in black and white. Spoils the effect. This guy is just creepy, as so many Santas are creepy. I don't know what he's saying to that little boy, but I'm glad it's not my kid.

This guy obviously studied at the Adolf Hitler School of Santology. Note the impassioned gestures! The menacing shaking of the beard! Mein Fatherland!!

I don't know what the hell this is, but I wish I could find the rest of it. I stole it from a site called Giphy, which I only use if I am desperate. I make almost all my own gifs now, because the ones I see on the net are pure shit: short, choppy, with no theme, no emotion, no remembrance of things past. This looks like a funeral pyre, or a whole heap of kindling waiting to be set ablaze.

This has to be seen to be believed. Must be some old European thing. Here, a Christmas frog tries to get something away from a Christmas bug, with a tiny sprig of a Christmas tree in the background.

Here, the frog appears to be in a homoerotic relationship with a tiny Santa Claus, Either that, or the frog is gigantic. Santa looks like some Russian Czar from the 1500s. This was long before that Coca -Cola ad that told us all what Santa really looked like (though I've long suspected that idea is bullshit, and that Santa just evolved over the years into the stereotype of today).

I promise you, this is the last Santa/bug gif. I share this with you only because, bizarrely, the bugs seem to be taking the ornaments OFF the tree. What they do with them next, we don't know. This is a very early stop-action movie which I don't want to research, so I won't. Figure it out for yourself. It's only six seconds.

Christmas puppet shows are a genre unto themselves, and an evil one. I may never recover from this video, in which Santa decides he's tired of delivering toys to the kiddies and hands the whole thing over to a stoned-looking cat. 

No one seems capable of producing a pleasant-looking Santa puppet, or, in fact, a Santa puppet that is anything less than terrifying. This Santa's eyes are especially horrific: they drill into the core of your black, un-toy-worthy soul.

As with the frog and Santa, there is funny business going on, this time with a dog. Interspecies romance was never my thing, but here it is, in a children's program.

Santa meets his doppelganger, presumably the cat, but we can't see it, so we don't know for sure. Is his handshake suspiciously hearty?

One of the earliest, and strangest, Christmas videos I could find, only about a minute long and made in 1898 by the Edison Corporation. In this vignette, Santa or Father Christmas descends from a bubble in the sky, wearing a sort of long monk's robe with a hood. Though I have not seen this before or since, he carries the Christmas tree around with him. He drops a small something-or-other into each of the long skinny socks hung at the foot of the bed. Batteries not included. (Watch carefully - I just saw this now - the second "toy" misses the mark and drops on the floor, but I guess in Edison's time there were no retakes.)

Maybe it's true what they say about those Coca-Cola ads, as suspicious at it sounds. Earlier Santas did look weird, and in one silent-era video he even had a spotted velvet smoking jacket with brown fur trim. 

This whole writhing display is beginning to resemble a fever-driven Walpurgisnacht. So I bid you good night. Or bad. Or however it turns out to be.

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The Hardrock Cafe: a truly terrifying Santa story

The Night Before Christmas Disney's Silly Symphonies YouTube

Christmas Cats

Christmas screensavers suck rocks, except for Christmas cats. Not many make the cut. I don't allow any artificial poses, cute hats, or other artifices that take away from the subject's cattitude.

Though this roundhead isn't my favorite type of cat, at least it isn't a munchkin or a Scottish fold. The contrast of the smoky tabby markings with the shiny silver and red baubles is striking. Kitty has a paw ready and is just about to strike.

Though I am not sure how they got him/her to remain still for this shot, especially with all those needles sticking into his tum, you have to admit this looks festive. Kitty seems happy, all ready for his bribe of Christmas tuna.

This one was right on the line because it isn't super-Christmassy, but the gorgeous Siamese tolerating the fuzzy (white-and-tortie?) kitten is very sweet. Now that I look at it, I see a kind of fur collar around the Siamese. At least, no bells.

Yes, this is how it should be done: a cat IN the hat, literally, snuggled up for a long winter's nap.

Sleeping cats are always good. This picture is gorgeously simple, and the lights look like the lights on my Christmas tree when I take my glasses off. Suddenly they're about a foot in diameter.

This is Kit-Kat's first Christmas, and he can't quite figure out what's going on. That ball is the size of his head. It looks like an artificial tree, so he won't be quite so enchanted with it. But just having a structure like that in the house, an outdoor-looking, climb-able thing covered with shiny balls that fairly invite a game of paw-hockey, is quite a novelty, and we can't blame Kit-Kat for jumping right into the holiday spirit.

This is just my favorite, and it might just be my screensaver until the new year. The kitten seems so relaxed, as if he's about to drop off to sleep in that kitten way. 

These shots are too small and grainy to be screensavers, because they were taken a very long time ago. Our cat Murphy loved Christmas, not just for the tuna but for the convenient sleeping/lurking place. We found Christmas ornaments under sofas and chairs long after his passing. We learned to hang less-fragile ornaments at the bottom, because it was so entertaining to see him play cat-hockey with them. His stick-handling was something to behold.

His first Christmas was quite an event, and I wish we'd had a camera ready, as people always do now. He was only about eight months old, and antsy. Back then we had real trees (this was the last year, I recall), and Murphy tail-swished every time he looked at it or smelled it. One day we heard a dreadful smash and tinkle, and ran into the family room to see a half-grown apricot tabby with all four legs wrapped around the top of the tree, which was tipped over on its side. He must have made a giant run at it. The worst was that the container of water spilled. Oh dear. 

Murphy was fat. No euphemism would do. He weighed 22 pounds in his full glory, and lived to be 17 years old. We still find his Christmas collar when we unpack holiday stuff, which was supposed to give me fond memories but instead makes me miss him so much I could cry.

Known only to his close friends as Foo-Foo (and when he was really naughty, Poo-Poo).

After a rare snowfall. He wasn't quite sure what to do, but made out.

Murphy defies gravity. A Christmas miracle!

Wait. . . I forgot this guy!

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Wendy and the Ice Monsters

Wendy and the Ice Monsters (a Grandma tale)

Chapter One: WHERE’S SANTA?

Once there was an eight-year-old girl with red hair and lots of freckles. Her name was Wendy, and she was very independent and liked to have her own way. She didn’t care what the other kids thought of her, even if they called her names like Carrot Hair or Orange Crush or Wednesday.

One night Wendy was trying to sleep. But she couldn’t sleep because it was Christmas Eve, and who can sleep on Christmas Eve?! She wanted to stay awake so she could see Santa bringing presents for everyone.

So she decided to stay awake, but Santa didn’t come, and Wendy was very ticked off. It seemed like hours were going by. “Ill bet Santa will never come,” she said.

But just then. . .
CRASH!

WENDY FELL THROUGH 

THE FLOOR!

She fell and fell. She fell and fell and fell and fell and fell!

“Help!” screamed Wendy. “I’m falling!”

Then suddenly. . .

She fell some more. She fell and fell and fell and fell and fell.

“Rats,” said Wednesday. She was getting used to falling by now, and wasn’t afraid. Well, she was a little bit afraid.

She thought she might land on a rock or go THUD on the ice. But when she finally landed, she felt light as a feather. But she didn’t land on feathers. It was frost, like you see on the tree branches and leaves in the winter.

“Yikes! This is cold on the bum!” yelled Wendy.

It was very very dark and cold.  She didn’t know where she was. Some kind of ice cave? Talk about scary! Wendy was a brave girl. Most of the time. But this time she wasn’t too sure.

“I want my Mummy,” she said, and began to cry.

POOF!

Chapter Two: Hello, Frost Man!

Something or someone appeared in front of her. He was nine feet tall and BLUE! He was all covered with blue and silver frost.

“You look cool!” said Wendy.

“Thank you, little girl. I am cool. I have to be, or I would melt. By the way, who are you?”

“Who am I?” Wendy cried. “Who am I?? I’m normal! I’m a little girl. You’re the monster, aren’t you?”

When she said this, Frost man began to cry. She had hurt his feelings. Wendy suddenly felt very bad about what she had called him.

As he cried, water ran down his face.

“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, Frost Man. You’d better stop crying, or you’ll melt,” Wendy said.

“But I’m frightened.”

“Of me?”

“No. You’re not as brave as you say you are, or you wouldn’t make fun of other people.” Wendy felt embarrassed, because he was telling the truth.

“So who are you frightened of?”

“I’m afraid of the Ice Monsters. I can see their shadows moving around in the distance.”

(Oh no, it gets worse, Wendy thought to herself.)

“Listen, Frost Man, I don’t know who or what you are, but I like you. I’ll help you beat those Ice Monsters. We’ll do it together. As a team.”

Frost Man gave her a quavery smile. He really wasn’t sure a little girl could help him with something as scary and powerful as the Ice Monsters. But he was glad to have a friend. There weren’t too many Frost People around in this strange hidden world.
Then, all of a sudden –

BLAM!!

Everything exploded into ice cubes! Wendy was amazed to see that everything around her was made of ice crystals.

“Is this Ice Land?” Wendy asked. She had heard about it in geography. It was a country that sounded very cold.

“No. It’s the Land of the Ice Monsters.”

“So where did all the other Frost People go?”

“They’re hiding. When the ice explodes like that, it means. . . THEY’RE COMING!”

“OK then!” Wendy had made her mind up. “Let’s go

deal with those monsters!”

They made their way through chunks and hunks of ice. Wendy couldn’t see any Ice Monsters. The place seemed deserted. Then. . . What was THAT??

Something was appearing in the mist. It looked like an ice cloud. Then it got bigger and bigger!

It was an ICE MONSTER!

Chapter Three: The Land of the Ice Monsters

“Aeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh,” screamed Frost Man. He started to run away. “Don’t you dare run away,” said Wendy. “You must confront your fears.”

“What does that mean?”

“You can’t run away.”

“Oh.”

The Ice Monster looked terrible. He looked worse than anything Wendy had ever seen. He had awful eyes. He had awful hair, like big splinters of ice sticking out of his head.  He looked like the Abdominal Snow Man, or Bigfoot with white fur, only a lot meaner. He looked ten feet tall!

“I know how to deal with this guy,” Wendy said.

“HOW??”

“He’s an Ice Monster, isn’t he? We can melt him.”

Frost Man looked doubtful.

“There’s no electricity down here. We don’t have any blow driers or anything like that.”

Wendy thought and thought. She had no idea how to melt the Ice Monster. But it got worse! Just then she saw another TEN Ice Monsters coming up behind him! They looked awful! They looked scary!

YUCK!!

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!” screamed Wendy and the Frost Man.

But then she had an idea. “It’s Christmas Eve, a magic time. Maybe that will give me magic powers!

The Frost Man looked doubtful. “Are you sure?”

“No. But do you have any other ideas?”

“Uh, no. Let’s go for the magic powers.”

She pointed her finger at the Ice Monster. “ZAP-A-DOODLE!” she screamed. A lightning bolt shot out of the end of her finger and hit the Ice Monster!

“Ow,” he said.

“He’s melting!” cried Frost Man..

“Zap!” yelled Wendy. “Zap-a-doodle-doo!”

Chapter Four: VICTORY!

Bolts of lightning were flying everywhere! All the Ice Monsters began to melt like icing on a hot day.

The Ice Monster began to turn into slush as he screamed and ran away. “He turned out to be a big coward,” Frost Man said in surprise.

“We won, we won!” said Wendy. “He’s just a puddle now.”

 “Yay,” said Frost Man.

“But wait a minute. It’s Christmas Eve! I’m supposed to be in my bed, waiting for Santa.”

Frost Man looked at her. “Remember, this is a magic night.”

“It is?” Wendy wondered if she had used up all her magic zapping the Ice Monster.

“Of course it is.”

ZAP-ZAP-ZAZZLE!

All at once, the dark ice cave vanished, and Wendy was miraculously back in her bed.

“Wow!” she said. “It’s so good to be home. Nobody’s going to believe what happened to me.” Then she thought of something. “But I miss Frost Man. He was such a good friend to me.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Even if he comes back, how am I going to be friends with a person who has to stay frozen all the time? I wonder if I can keep him in the freezer.” She was very discouraged.

Then she heard a sound outside her window. A sort of sparkly, tinkly sound like ice crystals hitting a pane of glass.

Slowly a pattern formed on her window. It was a face! A face made of frost and starlight. And not just any face, but one she knew very well.

“It’s you! I knew you’d come back.”

“Merry Christmas, Wendy.”

“Merry Christmas, Frost Man. Well, it’s not quite Christmas yet. So Merry Christmas Eve. How did you get here?”

“This is a magic night, remember? So here I am.  Every Christmas Eve, just look out your window and make a wish, and I’ll be there.”
POOF! The Frost Man disappeared, as Wendy watched in wonder.

When Wendy woke up the next day, she shook her head. “I’ve never had a dream like that before. It was a doozy.” Then she noticed a strange sort of pattern on the window.

The sun was shining through it and it was all glittering blue and silver, almost like diamonds.

“Pretty,” she said, and ran downstairs to see what Santa had brought her.

THE END

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