Simple Gifts (1977)

Directed by:	R.O. Blechman Phillip Schopper
Written by:	R.O. Blechman Fontaine Fox ("Lost and Found") Moss Hart ("A Memory of Christmas") Edward Hulse Theodore Roosevelt ("My Christmas") Maurice Sendak Virginia Woolf ("The Great Frost")
Release date:	1977
Running time:	58 minutes
Available on:	VHS Blu-ray ("No Room at the Inn" short only)

Simple Gifts is a 1977 Christmas special that debuted on PBS in 1977.

Summary

A collection of animated Christmas shorts

• An original Maurice Sendak piece about a boy with nothing to give for Christmas
• An excerpt from the early part of Virginia Woolf's "Orlando" set in a time of extreme cold in Tudor-esquire England
• A short based on the Toonerville Trolley
• A bittersweet excerpt from Hart Crane's autobiography "Act One" narrated by Jose Ferrer
• A reading from the Christmas day entry from the diary of 11-year-old Teddy Roosevelt
• A reading a letter by Captain Edward James Hulse describing the surprising Christmas Truce of 1914
• No Room at the Inn: An animated version by R.O. Blechmann of his own book "Tutto Esaurito" (No Vacancy) about the travels of Mary and Joseph.

Availability

The special itself was released on VHS by PBS Home Video. The "No Room at the Inn" short was included as one of the special features on the Kino Lorber Blu-ray release of The Soldier's Tale (1984), released on March 19, 2024.

External links

• Simple Gifts at the Internet Movie Database

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