So, I’m sitting down to enjoy my Original Christmas Classics Limited Keepsake Edition DVD — that’s a collection that includes Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town!, The Little Drummer Boy, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, Cricket on the Hearth, and Frosty Returns — when I read the back of the box: "Remember When… Frosty was brought to life by a top hat on Christmas Day?" No, actually. I remember when Frosty melted in that greenhouse (pictured), because I sobbed. Every year. Watching it again just now, I thought for the first time about how horrible that must have been for little Karen to witness! It’s like the end of Titanic. In reverse! Is this the saddest moment in a holiday special or movie? If not, what moment tops it?
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You said you have the Little Drummer Boy in the same set. Check out the scene where his pet lamb is run down by the runaway cart. Yeah, like Frosty he’s eventually resurrected. But I’m convinced that scene (and the fact that LDB is one of the few Christmas specials with actual religious content) is the reason that Little Drummer Boy was pulled from TV for two decades.
Tiny Tim.
Saddest moment is in Garfield’s Christmas special when it’s Christmas Eve and Garfield is sitting in Grandma’s lap in the rocking chair, and she’s telling him about how Christmas Eve is the night that she misses Grandpa the most……I cry every single time I watch it.
The saddest scene is in “Nestor: the Long Eared Donkey”, when Nestor’s mother dies. Tragic!
Hands down, saddest is Little Drummer Boy, with that lamb. I was traumatized as a child watching that piece of art and to this day, have to leave the room when it happens! What a tearjerker!
Another vote for when the mother dies to save her son in Nestor the Long Eared Christmas Donkey. That scene still makes me cry 30+ years later!
In One Magic Christmas when the parents are too poor to get any presents. That makes me sad. That movie has alot of sad parts.
I agree with the Garfield one.
I’m with you, Mandi. Nothing gets me as much as that greenhouse scene. It’s seriously traumatic.
The ALF Xmas special when the little girl dies. Dammit, it’s Xmas!
The entirety of Emmett Otter’s Jug Band Christmas.
The movie Prancer makes me cry pretty much from start to finish. I mean, really cry! I’ve watched it twice so far this season, and I still get all weepy. For some reason, it’s my favorite Christmas movie (along with The Year Without a Santa). Frosty melting is pretty traumatic though. I never liked Frosty for that reason.
YES! oh man, I thought I was the only one! I ball my eyes out everytime, theres only been two movies to ever make me cry. Prancer, and Bridge to Terabithia
Mean old Ben Weaver in the alley, softly singing along to “Away in a Manger,” as he watches Andy and company’s jailhouse Christmas celebration on “The Andy Griffith Show. Gets me every time. That, and Mr. Magoo’s Scrooge singing, “I’m All Alone in the World.”
My husband and I rented a collection of Disney Christmas cartoons, and one of them was titled “The Small One,” and its about a boy who has to sell his little donkey because its too old to work. After trying all day to find the donkey a good home, the boy eventually ends up at a tanner. I have never cried so much during a cartoon before. It ends happily with Joseph buying the little donkey to carry Mary to Bethlehem, but I can’t ever watch it again!
Wow, I totally forgot about Emmett Otter. That movie always got me.
Emmett Otter always tears me up, and Mr. Magoo’s A Christmas Special when he collapses in the cemetary and starts singing that sad song that’s basically about how alone he is. I never cried at Frosty, cause even as a kid I was like- soo.. go outside in the snow and make another one. I was a cynical kid.
That part in “The Christmas Toy” (mid-80s Jim Henson special) where it looks like Mew the cat toy has been frozen forever because he was found outside his original position by a human. Rugby the stuffed tiger sings a song to him that starts “Old friend, dear friend…” Never fails to get the waterworks going. Of course a Christmas miracle occurs and Mew is resurrected, but still.
Without a doubt it has to be Nester The Long Earred Donkey when his mom gives her life for him. “Ears Nester”. Ohhh the pain!
It was a long time ago…but Animaniacs had a segment with wrapping paper that was discarded and blew around until it ended up with a homeless family who thought it was the greatest thing in the world. Cried like a baby.
Nothing can top The Little Drummer Boy!
It STARTS out with people coming into the village and burning down houses (plus other horrible things) and just makes you cry for the whole show.
My mom banned me from watching it because I cried so much.
Still makes me cry today.
I’m so glad others love Emmett Otter like I do! When Emmett and his Mama both lose the talent show to the Nightmare Band it just breaks my heart.
Family Circus when PJ dreams his Grandpa who’s died shows him where his mothers favorite ornament was stored. Jeez. It’s wierd real life seldom makes me tear up but this stuff gets me everytime.
Remember watching Nestor with my young nephew and both of us getting upset. The site of Nestor crying next to a pile of snow which was of course supposed to be his mother was absolutely heart breaking!!
And not Xmas, but a New Years show – Designing Women when Charlene gives birth. When the elderly woman dies, I always cry! I try to make myself to not even watch it when its on.
There is this really old MGM cartoon called “Christmas Comes But Once a Year” which starts off at an orphanage on Xmas morning. The orphans run to collect their toys and one by one the toys break (The most heartbreaking was a girl hugging a teddy bear not realizing the stuffing was slowly falling out). The orphans are devastated and bail their eyes. Thankfully an old man passes by and saves their Christmas by making new toys for them but still, 20 years later and I still get sad thinking of that horrible opening scene.
I second (third?) the comments pointing out the sadness of “The Christmas Toy” AND the Garfield Christmas special.
When Grandma got run over by the reindeer. Tragic.
Ain’t no hole in the washtub…..
Moral Orel’s “The Best Christmas Ever” is pretty much the most depressing holiday-centric episode of anything ever.
The Christmas Episod of Pinky and the Brain. After all their effort, Pinky gives the world (in the form of a small key chain) to Brain…It just gets to me everytime…
The Iron Giant is not strictly speaking a Christmas movie, but it gets shown a lot this time of year. But it gets me like few other things ever have. The ending, where the giant remembers the boy telling him that he can be anything he wants, and then the giant utters a single word summing up what he wants to be as he sacrifices himself to a nuclear missile to save the town – that destroys me.
And the one word? Superman.