ThomasNATION Classic Reviews - Thomas' Christmas Party

You know, I love Christmas and Christmas has always been a big part of Thomas in both The Railway Series and the television series and that's no surprise as The Railway Series itself was penned by an Anglican vicar. Thomas' Christmas history started back in 1952 in the book Toby The Tram Engine with the story "Mrs. Kyndley's Christmas".  Interestingly enough, this was the only Christmas story to ever be featured in a Railway Series book. Then, the television series came along and Britt Allcroft asked the Reverend W. Awdry to write a Christmas story for the final episode of the first season set to air on Christmas Day.  The result was "Thomas' Christmas Party".  The tradition of the Railway Series spin-offs to coincide with the television series continued into the second season with "Thomas And The Missing Christmas Tree", this time written by Christopher Awdry.  After Season Two, the episodes were written by the writing staff and remained fairly good for the most part...that is, except for one major issue.

Starting in Season 6 with "It's Only Snow", the term Christmas was dropped and so began Thomas' long dance with political correctness.  "It's Only Snow" coined the term 'winter holidays' to create a more inclusive holiday that all denominations could relate to except they can't because the holiday being celebrated was very obviously Christmas.  Just to clear one thing up, political correctness doesn't bother me in appropriate context like what an ethnic group refers to be called.  But when it's trying to hide the fact that Christmas is in a children's television show, it's just plain ridiculous.  Ironically, 'winter holidays' offended more people than it comforted for the reasons I previously stated including the Reverend W. Awdry's late daughter Hilary Fortnam.  She publicly called out Hit Entertainment on the ridiculousness of 'winter holidays' and even got them to change it back to Christmas for the UK release of "Merry Winter Wish" and all future Christmas themed episodes.  For that, we all owe Hilary our thanks and praise - her father sure would be proud of her.  But that's a story for another day as we're here to ring in the season with the holiday special that started it all for Thomas The Tank Engine as it's a race against time to save a very special friend of the railway in order for her to attend 'Thomas' Christmas Party'!

THOMAS' CHRISTMAS PARTY: Thomas wants to hold a special Christmas party for Mrs. Kyndley. Unfortunately, Mrs. Kyndley's house is snowed in, so he must assist Toby and Terence to help clear the snow.

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"Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends thought it was the best Christmas ever and Mrs. Kyndley could think of nowhere she would rather live than here with them on The Island of Sodor".

                       And there we have it, a wonderful first holiday themed episode of the Classic Series and the start of many more holiday episodes to come for the franchise's future.  This was another nice feel-good story, none of the engines were trying to get on each other's nerves and nobody was having any accidents.  If there's one thing that brings them all together, it's Mrs. Kyndley who oddly enough after this episode in the series never has another episode as extensive as this one since this is really the only one that has any kind of story dealing with her.  So more or less, Thomas and his friends come together for Mrs. Kyndley once and that's it; calling it quits, folks!  What's also refreshing is that this Christmas episode is not your run-of-the-mill type narrative where the morals of giving are emphasized as blatantly as other specials do since Christmas was the backdrop and it just happened to be about a woman getting a holiday surprise from a bunch of talking trains...as weird as that sounded.

Another awesome thing is that this story has practically every major character that has been introduced at this point in the series.  Unfortunately, Terence decided to stay at Mrs. Kyndley's instead of the party but he did have his moment of glory and even Bertie dropped by to have some fun...and check out those hats, those hats must be the size of a human being or larger.  The same could be said for those Christmas lights which I'm sure are just actual Christmas tree lights.  Nevertheless, they are huge if someone is standing next to them.  We once again don't have any new tunes, but the revisiting of Thomas' theme with a Christmas twist is appropriate considering the story.  Camerawork is good too, Mrs. Kyndley's cottage is a cute little home that for those who love the railway I'm sure wouldn't mind living right along the line.  The panning shot that shows everyone at Tidmouth Sheds is a great one too.  Finally, we see almost everyone together for once!  

Lastly, the ending was spectacular in its visual display having everything and everyone all decked out in holiday decor is marvelous from the engines to the rolling stock to the sheds and of course having Ringo Starr and/or George Carlin singing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' at the very end is the icing on the ice cream cake, and as the first in a long line of many more holiday specials to come for the little blue tank engine, I am proud to give 'Thomas' Christmas Party' a rating of a 4.5 out of 5.