It's a bad situation when your letters to Santa come back in the mail, unopened. It's an even worse situation when you find out the man in red has singled your town out as one not to visit this year-thanks to a blasphemous letter that questioned his existence, printed up in the newspaper for all, including Santa himself, to see.

In the cel-animated 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, the mice and people of small town Junctionville are worried sick that Santa might turn a cold North Pole shoulder on them. The local clocksmith, voiced by Joel Grey, believes that if he builds a huge musical clock in the town hall tower, Santa will be lured back. While he toils away on the clock project, the mice that are living inside his house are also at work. When Father Mouse busies himself trying to find out who offended Santa, he finds the writer of the 'doubting Santa' letter that sparked all the mayhem was none other than his jaded little mouse son, Albert.

Albert got in big trouble for putting pen to paper, and then to top it all off, he accidentally broke the town hall clock too. While the people wring their hands and blame the poor clocksmith for this latest Santa-prohibitive mishap, Albert tries desperately to fix the clock-if it doesn't chime at midnight, the man in the red suit's a no-show for sure. In the end, the clock chimes and Santa comes to Junctionville to do his thing-redeeming both Albert and the clocksmith. Whether you're a man or a mouse, when you've got presents and redemption, it's a pretty good Christmas.