The Year Santa Got Lazy

         As you may be able to tell from this site, I love Christmas.  I love the music (most of it), the food (all of it) and the parties!  I especially love the holiday programs on television.  But with that said, I need to comment on an annual program that I watch, "The Year Without a Santa Claus."  
            Now, I don't know if you've seen this show, but it's in that same cartoon-claymation vein as "Rudolph" and "Rudolph's Shiny New Year" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town".  I don't know if I've just never really paid attention to the plot of this little movie, since I'm usually wrapping presents or doing something else while watching television.  But this year, I was paying attention, and I'm not going to lie.  It's kind of disturbing, this movie.
            Here's the basic plot. 
            Santa is being a whiny little biotch and claiming that no one cares about him or Christmas anymore.  So he decides to take off this year.  You know, because he works so much?  I don't think so.  This man works one day a year. 
            And to cover up his laziness he claims he has a cold.  Oldest trick in the book Santa!  Unless he actually has a cold?  I guess his little claymation nose is kind of red….
            Hold up, hold up.  A cold???  We are talking about a measly little cold here?  A cold, that you can just take some Tylenol and go work your one day a year.  I mean, it's not even like he has pneumonia or West Nile.  Suck it up, Santa, suck it up.  Or as my best friend just said on this subject, "Pop a Halls, Santa, and get back up on that reindeer."
            Oh, except he can't hop on a reindeer because Mrs. Santa Claus sends these two slightly crazy elves down to Earth to find some Christmas spirit.  And they take Vixen, who has decreased in age and is apparently now only a baby reindeer.  Maybe this story takes place before Rudolph came along???  Because I'm fairly certain these shenanigans would not be happening if Rudolph were around.
            Anyway, on the way, we are introduced to Mr. Heat Miser and Mr. Snow Miser.  I have to admit, I kinda like these two brothers, despite their narcissistic demeanors.  They don't care for each other and try to blackmail Mrs. Claus in exchange for some Christmas spirit.  (Well, that's the gist anyway.)  But they carry on their twisted plots while singing old-school show tunes so really what's not to love.
            Well, their mother doesn't love their antics.  Who is she, you ask?  None other than Mother Nature, who is ready to put a beat-down on her sons. 
            So to sum  up, we have Santa being lazy and pretending to have a cold.  Mr. Heat Miser and Mr. Snow Miser trying to blackmail Mrs. Claus.  Mother Nature is pissed off at her ego-maniacal sons.  Vixen, the baby reindeer winds up at the dog pound with socks on her antlers!  Basically, everything is going to pot!
            And then (and I forget how this happens exactly) but all the children of the world decide it's a fabulous idea to give Santa the year off.  Who are these kids?  Because as a child there is no way I would have been okay with not having Santa bring me presents!  And these kids all start sending Santa gift instead!.  Well played, Santa, well played….
            It finally takes some kid singing "Blue Christmas" and crying to get Santa to concede his selfish vacay.  He goes back to his one day a year job and everything is right with the world.
            What a story!
            And yet, I will watch it again next year and every year after….