Santa Conducts an Experiment in Generosity in The Small Town Children's Christmas

One of my favorite Christmas specials is The Year Without a Santa Claus, the Rankin-Bass classic that introduced the Snow and Heat Misers, whose dueling song would become a Christmas station staple. In that movie, Santa decides to call off Christmas because he is feeling unappreciated. In The Small Town Children’s Christmas, written by Patrick K. Hallinan, his reasons for deciding against his annual flight are a bit less self-involved. His chief concern is that children have become too greedy and fail to understand the joy of giving.

Hallinan spins his story in verse, mostly four or eight lines at a time. The format is inconsistent, with some parts following an ABCB format and others embracing AABB; while I find that a bit distracting, the rhyme is generally done well, and the rhythm is usually spot-on. He does not capitalize the first letter in a line unless that letter would be capitalized in the normal course of a sentence. This gives the book a slightly less clean look than many of this type, but it also helps to increase the focus on the individual sentences instead of the verses. That’s probably a good thing, though occasionally, portions of the story seem to have been written mainly for the sake of rhyme. I imagine the book would have been a bit less long-winded if the writing style had been prose.

Questions of style set aside, it’s a pretty good story. Santa is not simply giving up on the children of Earth. He’s hoping that his failure to show up will stir them into some sort of positive action, and that does come about through the efforts of one youngster, a lad named Paul who lives in poverty and has only one prized possession. He seems more in touch with the joy of the season than anyone, and while all of the children are on their best behavior, with him, it isn’t simply because he wants something out of it. His response to the lack of presents galvanizes the others; this mild-mannered kid seems like a natural-born leader. The conclusion reminds me of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, one of my all-time favorite Christmas tales.

The illustrations are cartoonish, and all of the characters have faces with a pinkish tone to them. Most of the kids have a rather general look to them, but Paul is more distinct with his scraggly brown hair and the red ball cap he always wears. Santa is the only adult human in the book, so we don’t know what sort of effect all this is having on the grown-ups in Small Town or elsewhere. All we see is the reaction of the children, but the verse suggests that their generous spirits have an impact upon people of all ages.

I can’t put my finger on just why, but something about this book feels rather generic to me. Nonetheless, The Small Town Children’s Christmas is a story that applauds selfless giving, and that is a virtue worth celebrating. If you fear your kids may be in danger of excessive greed as Christmas approaches, perhaps this book might serve as a gentle reminder that it is better to give than to receive.