Christmas

Tag Area: Real-World Event
Feature Film

Scrooge


A faithful musical retelling of the original (complete with humbugs and the ambiguity over whether viewing the past and present consists of actual time travel). —Michael Main
Humbug! Insolent young ruffians coming here with their Christmas nonsense!
A cartoon Scrooge highkicks at the front of a top-hat-wearing Christmas crowd.
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
Short Story

retold for children

A Christmas Carol


The tale is a somewhat faithful retelling for children, abridge to about a third of the original length, in simple language, and with copious illustrations by Chris Russell. It even retains the metaphysical thought that the future will be bleak for Tiny Tim if things remain unchanged. —Michael Main
If these shadows do not change, Tiny Tim will not see another Christmas.
Dressed in green and holding a torch high, the ghost of Christmas-yet-to-come
                beseeches a cowering Scrooge in his nightshirt and nightcap.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

You Wish (s01e13)

Gift of the Travi


When Genie gives each of the kids a Christmas wish, Mickey wishes for a white Christmas in LA, and Travis wishes that it would be Christmas every day. Yeah, like that ever works out. —Michael Main
I wish every day was Christmas.
An exhausted Santa Claus waves his hands in frustration.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 1*

Christmas in Camelot


On Christmas Eve, Jack and Annie’s tree house transports them to King Arthur’s castle in Camelot. They arrive to find that all is not well in Camelot, Merlin has been banned, and all magic use is forbidden. Many of the bravest knights have been lost on a mysterious quest to the Otherworld. The Christmas feast is interrupted by a knight, who sets a challenge to find the knights and break the curse. He demands to know “Who will go?” Annie, naturally, accepts. She and Jack set out on a quest to the Otherworld, to bring back magic and joy to Camelot. —based on fandom.com
Draped in a flowing red cape, young Jack clings to his sister Annie who clings
                to the nect of a white, flying stag with a castle in the background.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (s07e09)

It’s a Hot, Hot, Hot, Hot Christmas


While on a Christmas trip to Florida, Sabrina and Salem travel back in time to see who robbed the condo where everyone is staying —Inmate Jan
Oh, oh, oh—I think you went back a little too far!
Melissa Joan Hart (as Sabrina) pulls the lever on an a vintage engine order
                telegraph, bathing herself and Salem the cat in gold and red light.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
Feature Film

The Santa Clause 3

The Escape Clause


Now that Santa and Mrs. Claus have the North Pole running smoothly, the Counsel of Legendary Figures has called an emergency meeting on Christmas Eve! The evil Jack Frost has been making trouble, looking to take over the holiday! So he launches a plan to sabotage the toy factory and compel Scott to invoke the little-known Escape Clause and wish he'd never become Santa. —from publicity material
This is the part where I’m transported through time and everything goes back to the way it was, like I’d never become Santa at all.
Tim Allen (as Santa) and Martin Short (as Jack Frost) smile out at us over a
                winter scene in a tiny town.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 16*

A Ghost Tale for Christmas Time


Jack and Annie travel back to Victorian London when Merlin asks them to use their magic to inspire Charles Dickens to write “A Christmas Carol.” —based on fandom.com
A giant, bearded ghost with a torch beseeches young Annie and Jack who are
                dressed as 19th-century London street fiddlers.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Second Chances 3.1

An Old-Fashioned Christmas

  • by Peggy L. Henderson
  • serialized in Peggy L. Henderson’s newsletter, circa December 2015

Gabe McFarlain is adjusting to life in the twenty-first century, and looking forward to his first modern Christmas with his wife Morgan, and his adopted son. Sometimes, however, a little old-fashioned cowboy spirit can add sparkle to the magic of the holidays. —from publicity material
Snowflake ornaments and berries on a Christmas Tree branch. On the cover of the
                Christmas Caring anthology.
  • Romance
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Film

50 Year Calendar


A teenage boy opens a Christmas present that takes him from 2017 to 2047 where he meets two antisocial teens, learns of a future war, and has a confused end to his trip. —Michael Main
I’m from 2017. Can you fix it? I need to get back.
A handheld, brass device with rotating dials to determine the day of
                the week over a fifty year period.
  • Science Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Traveling Town Mysteries 3

Christmas Corpse

  • by Ami Diane
  • (Amazon Digital Services, December 2018) [e-book]

Ella has been in Keystone for two to four weeks. After a ride on a sled down a snow-covered hill, she discovers . . . yet another body. She also gets involved in making pumpkin pies, even thoigh baking is not her strong point. And, of course, decides to investigate the murder. —Tandy Ringoringo
Soon after her arrival, light flashed like a dome over the town. When it had dissipated, they were in a new location—and a new time. Now, just like the other citizens, she was a woman out of place and out of time.
An axe cuts into a piece of pumpkin pie on a beach with small-town storefronts
                in the background.
  • Fantasy
  • Romance
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

The Knight before Christmas


In AD 1334, a crone prophesizes Sir Cole’s future and sends the Englishman on an ambiguous quest to 2019 Ohio, where he does knightly non-Ohioan things and discovers the love of his life on Christmas Eve. —Michael Main
You shall travel to faraway lands, see things undreamed of: flying steel dragons and horses, magic boxes that make merry.
Vanessa Hudgens (as Brooke) in a lacy red dress and Josh Whitehouse (as Sir
                Cole) in his armor stand back-to-back in front of a modern Ohio Christmas day and a
                medieval Norwich castle.
  • Fantasy
  • Romance
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel
Novella

Second Chances 3.2

A Second Chance Christmas

  • by Peggy L. Henderson
  • serialized in Peggy L. Henderson’s newsletter, circa December 2019

Gabe and Morgan McFarlain are looking forward to spending Christmas Eve with their close friends, Jake and Rachel Owens. When the Reverend Johnson makes an unexpected visit, it is Gabe who holds the key to his friends' family secret. When he's asked to go back in time to save Jake's ancestor, the past and the future may be changed forever. —from publicity material
He chuckled and shook his head. To think that he’d wanted to ruin his brother and the ranch at one time. Because of his misguided need for revenge, he’d ended up in the future. Meeting Morgan and her son had been the best thing that could have happened to him. Although he missed his simple life in 1872, there was much to like about modern times, too.
An old windmill on a desolate landscape with two conifers and three stars in
                the sky. On the cover of the Second Chance Christmas collection.
  • Romance
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

A Christmas Carol


Patrick Steward delivers a nuanced portrayal of Scrooge in this faithful adaptation. Much of the dialog came verbatim from Dickens’s original, and the costumers paid careful tribute to John Leech’s original illustrations. —Michael Main
Scrooge: Is there no chance that boy will be spared?
Christmas Present: Not if the future remains unaltered.
Dressed in a black Victorian tophat, black coat, and black gloves, Patrick
                Stewart (as Scrooge) raises his cane as if to strike.
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
Feature Film

The Christmas Chronicles 2


Two years after the first Christmas Chronicles movie, young Kate Pierce is sitting on a beach in Cancun, missing her father and losing her status as a True Believer, all of which causes her to try flying back to Boston on her own—a plan that plays right into evil Belsnickel’s plan to overthrow Santa Claus and Mrs. Santa Claus. —Michael Main
Santa: [shaking head] Only Belsnickel would power a time machine with triple-A’s.
Kurt Russell (as Santa) and Goldie Hawn (as Mrs. Santa) pose in front of his
                village and two sleighs in the sky.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Tudo Bem No Natal Que Vem

  • Everything will be okay next Christmas
  • Just Another Christmas
  • by Paulo Cursino, directed by Roberto Santucci
  • (Netflix, worldwide, 3 December 2020)

While playing Santa on the roof, avowed Christmas hater Jorge takes a fall that results in him waking up every Christmas with no memories of what happened since the last Christmas. —Michael Main
Teu avô disse que eu ainda ia descobrir pra que serve o Natal. Foi você, né, sue velho?
translate He did it! Two days ago he said I’d find out what Christmas is all about! You cursed me, didn’t you, old man?
Frightened Leandro Hassum (as middle-aged Jorge) stands in a Santa hat among
                strands of Christmas lights.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
Feature Film

Ghosts of Christmas Always


This time around, the usual three ghosts are only one of the many three-ghost teams who are given a yearly assignment to scrooge one of the many Scrooges who seem to be more numerous than ever before. Together with their 2022 assignment—Peter Baron, an unsatisfied son of a food baron—they provide a nice tear-jerker for the entire family. —Michael Main
He’s like the anti-Scrooge.
No image currently available.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Fantasy
  • Romance
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
Cartoon

The Creature Cases, s02e01

The Missing Mammoth: A Holiday Mystery


An intense story about Sam, Kit, and R.O.N. going back in time to the ice age with wooly mammoths and how they got back to C.L.A.D.E.
—Manachu
You’re right. We’ve got to help them, even if we are stuck in the Ice Age.
Sam and Kit try to hang on the a rampaging wooly mammoth.
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Audience: Preschoolers
  • Definite Time Travel