VeggieTales Review: Saint Nicholas - a Story of Joyful Giving

Stars: 5 out of 5
Pros: The right blend of silly and serious to teach about giving

Cons: None

The Bottom Line:

Tells the true story

Behind legend of Santa

While entertaining

Saint Nicholas - The Third Veggie Christmas Release is the Best One Yet

I was a bit surprised when I learned that the gang at VeggieTales was going to do a third Christmas DVD.  Hadn't they already said all they wanted to say with the first two?  But, being the loyal fan I am, I bought Saint Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving.  Having watched it, I've got to say this is by far their best Christmas story yet.

A brief word about the series.  VeggieTales is a series of direct to DVD releases aimed at the Christian market.  They use computer animated talking vegetables to retell familiar Bible stories or parody literature to teach Biblical values.  But while they are teaching, they are also entertaining.  The videos are always packed with silly humor that kids and their parents will enjoy.  Heck, I don't fall into either category (unless you count kid at heart), and I love these things.

This entry does skip the traditional kitchen countertop wrap around (but they work the theme and Bible verse into the story quite well).  And instead of two or three shorter stories, the majority of the video is devoted to a retelling of the early life of Saint Nicholas.

Our story opens in a small town on Christmas Eve.  The kids are excited about all the presents they will get the next day, until Laura Carrot's dad has trouble with his car that may cost him his job.  In the quiet that follows, Bob the Tomato decides telling the story of Nicholas should help.

And so we travel back to Greece in the third century.  Aided by Larry the Cucumber (who tries to move the story forward and make it more festive), Bob tell us about a young boy named Nicholas.  His family is well off, but he can't understand why his parents spend so much time giving.  After their early death, he sets out to find happiness again.  Can he do it?  What might he learn from his search?

On the one hand, this is one of the more serious VeggieTale videos.  They are retelling the life of a real person, and they want to do it with respect.  (Okay, so they usually treat the Bible stories with a higher level of seriousness as well.)  There are some serious aspects of the main story as well as the contemporary wrap around.  These are treated as the serious events they are and not made the subject of jokes.

However, to say this one is all serious would be a complete exaggeration.  Larry's constant interjections into the story are downright hilarious.  He starts out complaining about the lack of holiday atmosphere, and then tries to throw in things that make no sense.  And I can't leave out the costumes worn by Mr. Lunt.  He plays a family servant who helps Nicholas.  And his disguises at the two of them go about helping others are downright hilarious.  They borrow heavily from comic books.  The second one, especially, had me in stitches.

Speaking of Mr. Lunt, he gets the silly song this go around.  Actually, it's a "Helpful Humanitarian Song."  "Donuts for Benny" finds him trying to get people on the street to give a poor dog donuts.  Of course, the consequences turn out to be quite different than he had expected.  It's got to be one of the better silly songs in recent years.  And I swear it sounded like a classic Christian song, but for the life of me I couldn't quite put my finger on which one it was.

This video is filled with great songs.  Several of them are original and really help tell the story.  However, the ones I really enjoyed were the parodies in the second half.  Again, they help tell the story.  But this time we've got new lyrics to such Christmas classics as "Jingle Bells" and "Deck the Halls."  And sit through the credits to hear "Give This Christmas Away," a new song recorded by Matthew West and Amy Grant.

For parents who are worried about how this video handles Santa, they do a great job of skirting the issue.  They do talk about Santa as the kids are waiting for him to visit, then Bob tells them Santa was really someone named Nicholas.  How these come together is left completely alone.

The animation when these videos started was quite poor.  They were low budget and very early computer animation.  How times have changed.  While this doesn't rival Pixar, it is still quite good and gets the story across in a fun way.

Quite obviously, the theme this time is about giving.  As part of that, there is a skipable ad before the main menu comes up for Operation Christmas Child.  It includes video of the underpriveledged kids the world over that have been helped as well as a funny video with Larry and the French Peas.  And it's a great way to put the theme into practice.

I am quite glad that the Veggies went back to Christmas for a third go around.  While I enjoy the others, Saint Nicholas is by far the best of the lot.  I look forward to enjoying this one for Christmases to come.