Release Date: November 22, 1985
Watch Date: December 11, 2024
“Award-winning actress, Mary Steenburgen, gives a solid performance as Ginny Grainger, a young mother who rediscovers the joy and beauty of Christmas, thanks to the unshakable faith of her six-year-old-daughter Abbie (Elizabeth Harnois) and Gideon (Harry Dean Stanton), Ginny’s very own guardian angel. Ginny’s wondrous experience will touch your heart and warm your soul in the timeless tradition of past Disney favorites. ONE MAGIC CHRISTMAS fulfills all your most treasures Christmas fantasies. Share it with those you love.”
Who doesn’t remember the magical holiday season where you found out that angels had specific jobs, and one of those specific jobs – if you died around Christmas I guess, while trying to do something nice – was to become a Christmas angel. If you were just a normal person, I guess when you die you’re forced into employment at Santa’s workshop. Which I suppose is totally fine, because no one seems bothered by it.
And who doesn’t remember that time when your mom was stressed out with money, and your dad wanting to open up a store, meanwhile she was pulling doubles at a store where she was being greatly disrespected by her manager, during the Christmas rush no less, and so to teach her about having the Christmas spirit an angel helped to organize the death of your father, and then your subsequent kidnapping, along with that of your sibling, and then allowed your mother to think her entire family had died for an entire day. And when your miraculous return still wasn’t enough to pull her into the Christmas spirit, you travelled to Santa’s workshop – again, filled with dead people – to find a long unanswered letter she wrote to Santa – who had it, and exists, but I suppose chose not to be giving this one year, and when your mother accepts that and mails it or whatever, then your dad comes back to life and only your mother remember s the whole 24-48 hour period where her life basically burned to ash?
I mean that’s the Christmas spirit, right?
Also, and again, I’m going to harp on this every year because it’s going to bug me every single year but I hate Christmas movies where the parents don’t believe in Santa, but then it turns out, surprise, he does exist. What are the rules of that universe? That if your parents don’t also believe in Santa then you have to get gifts from your parents – who are always stressed about finances in this film, but the parents who do believe in Santa just don’t bother because they know their kids will be provided for by Santa? And if you are a parent who does believe in Santa and for whom magic presents just appear on Christmas Day, why would you not tell other adults about this phenomenon, so that the, too, could save hundreds of dollars every holiday season? That seems selfish not too, and shouldn’t being selfish put you on the naughty list, which would preclude you from getting magic gifts in the first place?
Makes no sense, and will constantly bother me. Do parents in these universes just not communicate and assume the other one went over budget on the kids, again, without telling them?
I don’t like this movie. I’ve watched it twice now in my life, and it upsets me every time. I don’t know why. It’s too Christian to be neutral, but not Christian enough to get any of the actually theology behind it right. Maybe it’s of the time? Maybe it’s because it was one of Disney’s first wacks at a proper Christmas special? Movie? I don’t even know if this was ever released in theatres. Either way, it’s bad. Everyone acts like they’re made out of cardboard, the ‘Christmas angel’ could easily be confused for a lurking homeless man. A parent dies. Two, technically, because the bank robber is also just trying to give his son a good Christmas, but apparently he wasn’t told about the fact that Santa is real and he doesn’t have to actually do anything…
I would really like to never watch this movie again, in my life.
But, it does start out with the voice of God, and not a lot of films are ballsy enough to do that, so I guess that’s nice?
Doc and Bob's Disney Adventure 
Leave a comment