Author: James Harleman

…my true love gave to me: EVANGELISM!

“But you must believe when I tell you this, It’s as real as my skull and it DOES exist!”

Peeling back the skin to see the narrative bone structure of The Nightmare Before Christmas and it’s skeletal character, Jack, our third narrative beat finds the once-sorrowful Pumpkin King speeding back to Halloweentown after his life-changing experience with Christmas. He’s just had his nightmarish world spun topsy turvy with a divine revelation of a happy, colorful land beyond his own, a rejuvenation that fills his heart and warms his bones with a fresh sense of living that he’s excited to share. Articulation of that newfound bliss, however, proves more difficult than our skinny protagonist anticipated.

…my true love gave to me: DISCOVERY!

What’s this? What’s this? There’s something very wrong
What’s this? There’s people singing songs

As we continue unwrapping The Nightmare before Christmas, we find a hearty recipe for sad Jack Skellington. Mix one part aimless wandering, a dash of sehnsucht wondering, stir with a skeleton-snatching snow flurry and you’ve got the ingredients for Jack’s journey through a doorway to a world of light and laughter, peace and love. Transported from the grey, mundane streets and cemeteries of Halloweentown, the story’s unsatisfied protagonist finds himself in a miraculous and life-altering change of address. Jack sings ecstatically:

…my true love gave to me: DISCONTENT?

“Oh, somewhere deep inside of these bones
An emptiness began to grow
There’s something out there, far from my home
A longing that I’ve never known…”

Jack Skellington is sad. So sad. In The Nightmare Before Christmas, our skeletal main character is found depressed and lamenting, and why wouldn’t he be? He’s only… uh… the best he is at what he does, loved by all his peers and co-workers, adored by patchwork women, and almost everybody recognizes him as the guy in charge. Wait a minute: he’s the Pumpkin KING, he’s a rock star, he’s the king of the world, head-liner at what seems to have been their very best Halloween ever: so what’s wrong with this picture?

‘Twas a long time ago, longer now than it seems in a place perhaps you’ve seen in your dreams. For the story you’re about to be told began with the holiday worlds of auld. Now you’ve probably wondered where holidays come from. If you haven’t I’d say it’s time you begun…

In addition to one of the endless versions of A Christmas Carol, and endless showings of A Christmas Story, a tradition I and many other freaks and geeks (and otherwise normal people) keep each year is watching Disney’s enchantingly odd story, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. This quirky tale of Halloween characters trying to take over the Yuletide has built up quite a following since it first sang out in 1993, with everything from music boxes to pajamas to Jack Skellington action figures rolling out each year as decorations and presents, sparking that now-frequent debate: is this a Halloween or a Christmas movie?

(hint: the answer is in the title).