God Bless Us EveryOne!

Olly Mann waxes lyrical about the ultimate festive musical (or should we say carol?)

- Olly Mann

WHEN DOES CHRISTMAS begin in your household? The day you get the decorations down from the attic? The first afternoon you mull some wine? The morning you first tackle a chocolate orange for breakfast?

For me, it’s the evening we watch The Muppet Christmas Carol, Disney’s enduring 1992 retelling of the Dickens story, with added Americanisms and fur. For many years, this involved fetching a dusty VHS from the back of the cupboard, and would occur sometime in early December. Since the advent of Disney+, however—with the Muppets available on-demand 24/7, just one tap along from the Kardashians (insert your own gag here)—our annual home screening has been pulled ever earlier into autumn. This year, it was October 25. I was in a T-shirt. There were still leaves on the trees. The Halloween pumpkin had yet to be carved. But we just couldn’t wait. I caved.

My two kids have been hot-housed in the Muppet oeuvre from birth; if only because, when Grandma comes to babysit, The Muppet Show is the one cross-generational entertainment on which we can agree: slapstick for the kiddies, warm nostalgia for me, and Seventies guest stars Mum can readily identify (Charles Aznavour, Zero Mostel, Bernadette Peters… even their names feel retro). The tactility of the puppets is appealing too; the ping-pong eyes and the sticks under their arms being so much more relatable than their modern-day CGI equivalents. You can imagine exactly what Fozzie Bear feels like.