''The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow'' is a 1975

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a Religion, religious and Culture, cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by coun ...

stop motion Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exh ...

animated Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby image, still images are manipulated to create Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on cel, transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and e ...

television special A television special (often TV special, or rarely television spectacular) is a standalone television show which may also temporarily interrupt episodic programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Some specials provide a full range of en ...

produced by

Rankin/Bass Productions Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment (founded and formerly known as Videocraft International, Ltd. and Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc.) was an American production company located in New York City. It was known for its seasonal television specials, ...

which originally premiered on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

on December 19, 1975. It is narrated by

Angela Lansbury Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury (October 16, 1925 – October 11, 2022) was an Irish-British and American actress, producer, and singer. In a career spanning 80 years, she played various roles on stage and screen. Among her numerous accolades wer ...

and co-stars

Cyril Ritchard Cyril Joseph Trimnell-Ritchard (1 December 1898 – 18 December 1977), known professionally as Cyril Ritchard, was an Australian stage, screen and television actor, and director. He is best remembered today for his performance as Captain Hook i ...

Plot

A few weeks before Christmas, a young shepherd named Lucas is struck by lightning while wandering the countryside with his animals, a herd of sheep and a dog named Waggles. A group of kindly nuns named Sister Theresa (the narrator), Sister Jean, and Sister Catherine rescue him, taking him to their abbey nearby and decided to take him in. Soon, they and the priest, Father Thomas, learn that he was not only been blinded by the accident, but he is also an orphan as well. Father Thomas is slightly irritated, but nevertheless, Lucas is allowed to stay at the abbey while he recovers from the accident, and Sister Theresa becomes a mentor & mother-figure to him. She tells him about snow, something neither he nor anyone else at the abbey has ever seen (the village is "much too close to the sea"). He is fascinated and begins to dream of a "white Christmas". Later on, Father Thomas tells Sister Theresa of his plans to send Lucas to an orphanage after Christmas. Lucas overhears this and is heartbroken. In the meantime, he gets to play an angel in the abbey's Christmas pageant with some other children from the village. There, he meets a girl named Louisa, another one of the angels who immediately befriends him. He shares his dream of seeing snow for the first time with her and they start to develop feelings for each other. On

Christmas Eve Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas, the festival commemorating nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus. Christmas Day is observance of Christmas by country, observed around the world, and Christma ...

, Lucas realizes that he won't be able to take his sheep and Waggles to the orphanage with him after Christmas. He tells Waggles that he has decided to give them to Sister Theresa as a Christmas present. At the same time, three mischievous boys who are in the pageant with him have been eavesdropping on him and decide to lock the sheep in a shed as a prank. Shortly afterward, though, they get out and run into the wolf-ridden forest nearby, and Lucas sets out to find them. The boys admit to Sister Theresa what they have done before following Lucas into the forest to help him. When they arrive, he has found all of them except Woolly, who has fallen into a deep hole. Lucas and the boys work together to save him, and just in time for the pageant. At the pageant, after the children sing their song, "The First White Christmas", it begins to snow. Louisa excitedly explains this to Lucas, who is so happy that he weeps. Miraculously, Sister Theresa explains, these tears restored his sight, "not just for the moment, but for good". After the pageant, a small party is held, where Lucas gives Sister Theresa his sheep and Waggles. She is flattered but explains to him that she wouldn't be fit to care for them and invites him to stay and live with her at the abbey to watch over them instead of going to the orphanage. Even Father Thomas agrees, saying, "I do feel that the best place for a boy with no parents is with people who love him." Lucas is thrilled and remarks that this Christmas has been the "first real, happy Christmas of islife".

Cast

as Sister Theresa *

as Father Thomas * David Kelley as Lucas * Dina Lynn as Louisa * Iris Rainer as Sister Catherine * Joan Gardener as Sister Jean

Additional cast

* Greg Thomas - Trickster Boy #1 *

Don Messick Donald Earle Messick (September 7, 1926 – October 24, 1997) was an American voice actor, known for his performances in Hanna-Barbera cartoons. His best-remembered voice roles include Scooby-Doo; Bamm-Bamm Rubble and Hoppy in ''The Flintsto ...

- Waggles * Sean Manning - Trickster Boy #2 * Hilary Momberger as Octavia * Dru Stevens - Trickster Boy #3 * The Wee Winter Singers as the Children Chorus

Songs

* Christmas Snow is Magic/Save a Little Christmas (opening version) – Children Chorus * Save a Little Christmas – Father Thomas, Sister Theresa, Children Chorus * Christmas Snow is Magic – Sister Theresa * White Christmas – Lucas, Sister Theresa * The First White Christmas – Children Chorus * The First White Christmas (closing version) – Children Chorus

Crew

* Produced and Directed by

Arthur Rankin, Jr. Arthur Gardner Rankin Jr. (July 19, 1924 – January 30, 2014) was an American director, producer and screenwriter, who mostly worked in animation. Co-creator of Rankin/Bass Productions with his friend Jules Bass, he created stop-motion and ...

and

Jules Bass Julius Caesar Bass (; September 16, 1935 – October 25, 2022) was an American director, producer, lyricist, composer and author. Until 1960, he worked at a New York advertising agency, and then co-founded the film production company Videocraft ...

* Written by Julian P. Gardner * Music and Lyrics by

Maury Laws Maury Laws (December 6, 1923 – March 28, 2019) was an American television and film composer from Burlington, North Carolina. Biography In his teens, Laws performed in local country, jazz and dance bands as a singer and guitarist in his home s ...

and

* Sound: John Curcio,

Don Hahn Donald Paul Hahn (born November 26, 1955) is an American film producer. He served as a producer for the Disney films '' Beauty and the Beast'' (1991, the first out of three animated films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture) ...

, Dave Iveland, Tom Clack * Post Production Editing: Irwin Goldress * "Animagic" Production Supervisors: Akikazu Kono and Ichiro Komuro * Design: Lester Abrams * Music Arranged and Conducted by

Home media

The film's title actually refers to the Christmas pageant the orphan children presented on Christmas Eve, though the title could also refer to the first time Lucas actually experiences snow after his sight returns. It originally premiered on December 19, 1975 on

. In later years, it aired on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

, usually as the last Rankin/Bass special aired for the season. Freeform once aired the special each year during its "25 Days of Christmas" programming block, but

AMC AMC may refer to: Film and television * AMC Theatres, an American movie theater chain * AMC Networks, an American entertainment company ** AMC (TV channel) ** AMC+, streaming service ** AMC Networks International, an entertainment company *** ...

has now taken over broadcast rights for the special as of 2018. A

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

version is also available from ABC Video Enterprises in 1987, and

Warner Home Video Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment, Inc. (doing business as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment; formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the American home video distribution ...

on October 3, 1990 in the ''Holiday Treasures'' line. It was also released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

on October 2, 2012. Warner Home Video repackaged the DVD release of the special along with three of other Rankin/Bass Christmas DVDs in the 4 Kid Favorites: Merry Masterpieces box set, released on October 13, 2015. It was also released on DVD and Blu Ray as "The Complete Rankin/Bass Christmas Collection" with all 18 Christmas Specials on October 31, 2023. The story is set in 1845, yet Lukas and Sister Theresa sing "White Christmas," which wouldn't be written until nearly 100 years later. The nuns' black outfits indicate they're Carmelites, the order that St. Thérèse de Lisieux, The Little Flower, joined.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow 1970s American television specials 1970s animated television specials 1975 in American television 1975 television specials Christmas television specials Television shows directed by Arthur Rankin Jr. Television shows directed by Jules Bass NBC animated television series NBC television specials Rankin/Bass Productions television specials American Christmas television specials