Santa’s Pocket Watch (1980)
Article 6007 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-10-2021
Director unknown
Featuring the voice of William Rushton
Country: UK
What it is: Quaint Christmas whimsicality

What a young boy wants for Christmas is to meet Santa while the man is making his rounds. When he does, he hides in Santa’s bag and is taken to Santa’s workshop. There Santa allows him to spend Christmas celebrating with he himself and his elves.

You’d think that, given the title, that the timepiece would play a more significant role in the proceedings, but it’s merely an Item of Affidavit. And just what is an IOA, you ask? It’s merely that item that exists in a movie to provide proof that the adventure that preceded the character waking up in a familiar place did indeed truly happen. In action, it works like this.

A: Santa gives the boy his pocket watch as a present.
B: The boy wakes up in the corner of the living room, and begins to wonder if he really met Santa or not.
C: The boy finds the pocket watch, which serves as the Item of Affidavit to prove that yes, he did indeed meet Santa Claus.

Oops, did I give away the end of this Christmas short? Yes, it appears I did. But with an ending like that, does it really matter. When you get right down to it, there really isn’t much to this short; most of the running time is concerned with the elves performing gags. The end result isn’t godawful; it’s too congenial to really be that bad. It’s also nothing special, either. It’s a run-of-mill Christmas short that fills up twenty minutes of time.