"Christmas Every Day" is an animated holiday TV special that, because there are dozens of other holiday specials like it, has gotten itself lost in the shuffle. As far as I know, it hasn't ever been released on video or DVD. The reason I'm writing a review of it now is because I saw it only once on TV nearly 20 years ago, and the special was so unique and so memorable that I still think about it to this day.
The story is one within a story, where a father is spending Christmas Eve with his family, and telling his three children a cautionary tale about wishing for things. The story he tells is about a girl from the same sized (actually identical) family who makes a wish upon a Christmas ornament that apparently houses a magical, wish-granting, Fairy Godmother-like woman. The girl, when presented with the magical ornament, gets caught up in the child-like excitement of Christmas Eve, and wishes for it to be Christmas every day. Needless to say, she doesn't give too much thought to her wish. The Fairy Godmother, however, bargains with her that she will make it Christmas every day for the following year and see how it goes.
What results is a story that is part parody of the hype surrounding the holiday, and part cautionary tale that hammers home the idea that too much of a good thing can have drastic consequences. The girl soon finds that should Christmas be every day, the novelty of the holiday would wear off after no more than a week.
This special was clever in the way it chronicled every possible thing that could go wrong with society if Christmas were actually every day. Assuming that Santa Claus delivered gifts every day, he would deliver the same gifts day in and day out, resulting in the girl's family getting a different puppy every day. Soon enough, she has so many puppies that she names them after the day she got them (i.e. "Okay Puppy #249, fetch!"). Production would be halted also, assuming no one works on Christmas Day, leaving fewer and fewer gifts to be given. More trees would have to be cut down because of the demand for Christmas trees. Of course, you could argue that a fake Christmas tree would solve this problem, but let's not get too picky.
Compared to the wall-to-wall cuteness of the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials ("Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", "Santa Claus is Coming To Town"), "Christmas Every Day" has a decidedly darker sense of humor to it, but not so much that it would depress children. I watched the special when I was nine years old, and it didn't depress me. If anything, it made me think, and I would go as far as to say that it changed my life. I learned from watching this special that as wonderful as it seems having Christmas every day, the excitement of a holiday that comes once a year would eventually disappear, and there would be little to look forward to. Christmas comes once a year, it should be an enjoyable time, and there would be many ways in which it would be ruined if given too much exposure. Anyone who watches this special may actually appreciate Christmas even more when seeing it. It is a cartoon, and it is funny, but the message stays with you. Although the Rankin-Bass specials are still excellent after all these years and tell great stories, I couldn't say that any of those specials changed my way of thinking for the better. Satire is meant to inform as well as entertain, which is why "Christmas Every Day" is worthy satire for the whole family. If it ever comes out on DVD, everyone should see it.
