Watch The Christmas Elves

The Christmas Elves is a classic holiday morality tale. It is lively and imaginative retelling of The Elves and the Shoemaker through music and animation. In the country of Rothenberg ruled by the self-centered King Rheinhold, who loves shoes, lives a kind-hearted shoemaker Hans and his wife Ilsa. The townspeople have become impoverished by taxation, and business is slow, but the shoemaker finds work in ingenious and thoughtful ways. Unbeknownst to the shoemaker, he is secretly aided by apprentice elves, until one day he is accidentally awakened and transported to the elves village.

All is not happy for the elves either. It is the height of the holiday season and the Sprites (apprentice elves) deal with bullies and a hard-nosed supervisor, but thanks to the Shoemaker's intervention and a timely visit from Santa the Sprites get a chance to prove themselves worthy to be Santa's helpers. In the meantime, the Shoemaker and his wife decide to show their appreciation for the hardworking Sprites.

The action is fast paced and modern. Not a quaint nostalgia tale, but a plot with the hard edges of the real world. There is International intrigue as the greedy king manipulates his subjects and policy for the sole purpose of getting money to support his lavish lifestyle. The motivation here is toward hard, honest work with compassion for others and creative problem solving. People and Sprites, work together to creatively solve problems.

In the end of course everyone is happy and rewarded for their hard work and thoughtfulness, and the king gets a dose of Elfin medicine (whether he likes it or not).

The Christmas Elves is a 1995 music movie with a runtime of 48 minutes. It has received mostly positive reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 7.2.