Countdown to Christmas

by Bill Peet

Santa adopts a plastic toy sack and paints his sleigh psychedelic colors only to discover he has destroyed a magic necessary to Christmas.

Genres: Christmas, Picture Books, Holiday, Childrens

52 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1972

About the author

Bill Peet was an American children's book illustrator and a story writer for Disney Studios. He joined Disney in 1937 and worked on The Jungle Book, Song of the South, Cinderella, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone, Goliath II, Sleeping Beauty, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Dumbo, Pinocchio, Fantasia, The Three Caballeros, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and other stories.

After successes developing short stories for Disney, Peet had his first book published, Hubert's Hair Raising Adventure.

Reviews

[Calista · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bill Peet uses the Beatnik poets for inspiration here which makes this story very dated indeed. Santa is trying to be ‘groovy’ and ‘mod’. He is updating his wardrobe and repainting his slay. I know the toys are supposed to be modern, but Santa is a tradition, a classic; he isn’t supposed to be trendy and up-to-date.

I love Bill Peet’s art style and it’s on display here. Bill has a way with action-packed storytelling, but I don’t like the poem and Santa trying to be modern and of-the-era. The story is dated because of it. I wasn’t all the enthused by it. I wish he wouldn’t have used the lingo of the day. He wrote this in 1972. Anyway, he did and this is a Bill Peet story I’m not overly fond of. Everyone is allowed a few misses.

The nephew and niece both read the story as Christmas is everything around this house. Neither one of them had a connection with the story. It was all questions: why is Santa painting the sleigh all those horrible colors, why would Santa want a sack not red, why is Santa talking like that, on and on? It didn’t feel like Santa to them. The niece is very much into family traditions at this point in her life. Christmas has to go a certain way. She didn’t like the change this had at the edges of her consciousness for family rituals, I think.

The funny thing is our society is once again shortening words and gorgeous is becoming gorg (which I hate that. Gorgeous is much better, in my humble opinion. Gorg makes me think you are stuffing yourself grotesquely. Beauty or beautiful is now Bay (sp). We have all these shortcuts - who knows if they’ll last. Anyway).

The niece gave this 1 star and the nephew gave it 2. He liked the rocket sleigh enough to give it another star.

[Luisa Knight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Santa decides to change things up a bit - will he try to be groovy or return to his classic self? Another rhyming tale from Peet with wonderful illustrations.

Ages: 4 - 8

Cleanliness: someone says "dad-blast-it."

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[Hope · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as great as many Bill Peet books, but the magic is still there. The wonderful illustrations, the funny characters and situations... I greatly enjoyed it. Sort of what might have happened when Santa got affected by the 70's.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange book (pub. 1972) that plays on the modern "jet age" of the 1960s. Santa's all into modern stuff, so he wants a polyester bag and a sleigh painted lots of different non-red colors. He also wants to get rid of the reindeer and make his sleigh more like a jet. Apparently "mod" was a common term for modern (e.g., "mod girls and boys").

There was reference to a boss, and I asked Kate if she could tell from the picture which one was the boss. She said, "The one who isn't working."

[Felicia Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book is a good but it is hard to imagine Santa saying the things he said., for example, he was getting ready to pack up all the toys for his Christmas Eve run when he said the old sack was out of style so he threw it in the wind and asked his wife the make a new one.

[Bree · Rating 2 out of 5]

Notes:
odd story about santa becoming "mod" for the kids of the 70's
kids like it but it's not my favorite
rhyming text seems to drag on

[Noelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a fun, rhyming Christmas story about a hippie Santa trying to change his image.