The First Christmas

Stockard Channing narrates this inspiring story adapted from Leo Tolstoy's tale "Truths We Live By." Simon the shoemaker barely makes enough to get by, but that doesn't stop the kind cobbler from taking in a needy homeless man named Michael. Simon provides Michael with food, shelter and a job as his assistant. Mysteries unfold, relationships strengthen and new purpose is found as Simon slowly unravels the details of Michael's life.

Using vivid clay animation, this adaptation of the classic children's book is a feast for the eyes. Although the velveteen rabbit is the favorite plaything of a young boy, the more modern, mechanical toys hold the stuffed bunny in contempt … except the rabbit's single friend, the skin horse, who has become real. As the horse explains the mystery of how to become real, a fable about the transforming power of love and imagination unfolds.

A claymation adaptation of "The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In". The Chimes was a short novel by Charles Dickens which was written and published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol. It is the second in his series of "Christmas books": five short books with strong social and moral messages that he published during the 1840s.