At the height of production, the Chiodo brothers would have 104 people working at one time. By the time they were finishing production and post, they had employed almost 300 people. Artists and craftspeople, sculptors, set builders and painters, puppet builders and wardrobe fabricators; even in normal times it would be hard to assemble a team of such size. Stephen said, "We're experiencing a renaissance in stop motion right now." At the same time the Chiodos were making Alien Xmas, they say LAIKA (Missing Link) was making something, Henry Selick (Nightmare Before Christmas) was making something, and Guillermo del Toro was doing something! When asked why this was so, Edward answers that digital effects permeate our entertainment and that, because of this saturation, "I think there's a burn-out on CG to some degree." Edward says because of this renaissance, "there were more people trained and more opportunities for people to learn the craft of stop motion." He specifically credits the stop motion course the brothers did with SWSCA as having trained people. "The talent pool is larger than ever before." Stephen worried there would be a dwindling number of stop motion animators as the brothers got older, but he says there is, "A new crop of animators that are extraordinary." He was, "Overwhelmed with the performances they were able to provide." Stephen feels that viewers are attracted to stop motion animation because of the physicality and textures of inanimate objects coming to life and emoting. "It's literally magic."
The aliens are called "Klepts" which is derived from the word 'kleptomania' an irresistible urge to steal.
Originally began life as a feature film pitch, complete with artwork, storyline, and maquettes. While a lot of people liked the story, the film could not find funding. Stephen Chiodo remembers that they had all of these assets, designs and artwork, "So let's turn it into a book."
"One of the biggest challenges on the project was deciding on the puppet scale," said Charles Chiodo. The main character 'X's' scale would determine the scale of the rest of the puppets in the show. 'X' is the smallest primary character and he had to be small enough to be perceived as a doll by the next smallest character, the little girl Holly. 'X' was reduced to the smallest size that the Chiodo brothers felt they could get away with as far as flexibility and durability of the wire armatures and still be animated. That came to about five inches tall. That would mean that the Holly puppet would then need to be six to seven inches. Her parents Noelle and Obie would be eight inches and the rotund Santa Claus puppet would scale up to ten inches. That would mean that the sets got big. "They really had to watch the scale," said Stephen. Charles added, "All part of solving problems in the stop motion world." In fact, thought had been given to shooting 'X' on a green screen with a bigger puppet, but that would have been too difficult. Charles said, "It was out of the question to even consider doing two scales." Stephen reveals that there was one scale cheat. A 100% scale X was used for most of the project but a 90% scale X was used when he was being held by the little girl Holly. He says he, "thinks it works in the context of the story." Charles says they don't feel too guilty about it because animator and special effects pioneer Willis O'Brien changed the scale of King Kong in the original classic from 1933. Stephen echoes this sentiment. "You do what you have to do to make the shots work and tell the story."
Pre-production started in April of 2019 and shooting commence in June. Shooting would continue until the Christmas break of 2019 with post-production occurring in the first half of 2020 and final delivery in August. Charles says that the production is an example of how difficult a process stop motion animation is. "Everything is built from scratch and animated at one frame at a time."