My Favorite Christmas Movie

Released the same year as my birth, Disney's Small One is hands-down my favorite Christmas movie. My dad owns every adaptation of Dickens' Christmas Carol, my wife prefers the remake of Miracle on 34th Street (1994) to the original (1947), the general public has It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and I recently found a three-pack DVD set with A Christmas Story (1983), Christmas Vacation (1989), and Elf (2003), but nothing beats The Small One. Not Home Alone, The Grinch, or Charlie Brown. I'm man enough to admit I start crying (and I do mean tears streaming) during the opening credits and I don't stop till after the half hour short is over (it was played in theaters before the rerelease of Pinnochio).

Here are the lyrics of the theme song that do it to me, written by director Don Bluth (before he did The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and Anastasia):

"Small one
Small one
Don't look so blue
Somewhere a friend
Is waiting for you
Someone still needs you
To brighten His day
There's a place for each small one
God planned it that way

Time is passing
Days are few
Give while you can
To one smaller than you
All things living
Great and small
Each brings a gift
That is needed by all"

The movie is based on a book by Charles Tazewell (better known for The Littlest Angel), and while it's obviously about the Nativity of Jesus and the donkey that takes Mary to Bethlehem, it's about so much more to me. The message of the song is plainly about the worth of a soul but it also hints at developing our talents. The movie says a lot about how the world determines value and a little bit about familial duties, but what it doesn't came straight out and say is that there's a theme about the cycle of old age and new birth. If I had to pick just one moral to the story, it would be that the right place at the right time isn't always easy or apparent.