I stick to the belief that this classic animated movie has a place with all of the other halloween movies. It definitely holds some qualities that entail a christmas story but I don’t think Tim Burton intended it to become a classic to watch with the family after opening presents Christmas morning. I would hate to think that I will be receiving a shrunken head after watching this on christmas eve.

The movie starts in the land of halloween, with a celebration of all things scary and creepy. A parade led by a skeleton goes through the town with creatures watching. Now, when I watch this opening scene, I think of the haunting words they are saying: “This is Halloween”. We are thrown into this story with the blunt backstory of this town that focuses on Halloween and celebrating it like its a religion.

When Jack Skellington reaches the land of Christmas, he is confused. This is the only part where I think “Ah yes. Christmas”. If the story would be how he changed the land of Halloween to Christmas then I would say that this is a Christmas story with no real meaning. Even if it had a happy Christmas ending, what would the point of it be?

When he is trying out Santa’s shoes, hey brings elements of Christmas to Halloween but also does the exact opposite. Giving eery presents to children who were expecting a doll or a new bike doesn’t sound like Christmas to me- it sounds like a Halloween takeover. It has Christmas themes around it but it is so unsuccessful that I wouldn’t classify it in anyway as a merry Christmas. Those children have been scarred for life, and now their parents have to deal with those scary presents and their frightened children. Nothing about this reminds me of the Christmas spirit.