All Rise...

Judge Brett Cullum welcomes you to the Christmas miracle of Power Point!

Editor's Note

Our reviews of The Sights And Sounds Of Christmas: Classic Holiday Sing-Along (published December 11th, 2008) and The Sights And Sounds Of Christmas: Complete Collection (published December 5th, 2011) are also available.

The Charge

Welcome to my slideshow about Christmas!

The Case

The Sights and Sounds of Christmas is one of those DVDs you'll maybe put on during a holiday party or while you're at work as background noise to add to a holiday ambiance. It's like a new genre for DVD—audio visual filler, the stuffing at any winter meal. It's not any better than having a radio tuned to a station that plays holiday hits, but if you want music to trim a tree by, it could be a good choice. The main feature on the DVD consists of traditional Christmas songs accompanied by still pictures of winter landscapes, holiday cards, and cute kids. Yes, you heard right. Over an hour of photos accompanied by traditional music. Still photos! It's 70 minutes of a holiday version of the virtual fireplace with a better soundtrack. I don't really get it, but it somehow serves a purpose for people who like seasonal tunes combined with a holiday theme photo gallery. Couldn't somebody do this with a Power Point Presentation pretty easily? What's funny is as lackluster as the main portion of the program is, the extras are actually better. They include vintage cartoons like Rudolph and Silent Night that seem more engaging than the other stuff. The animated shorts are cute and worth a look for adults and kids who groove on classic animation.

VCI Home Video specializes in bringing vintage entertainment to DVD. They've done movie serials, public domain classics, and even a really good collection of the Honey West television series. They are a distributor who is well worth checking out, although the Sights and Sounds of Christmas seems to be just a place holder title in their catalog. The original footage for this disc was from a 1986 video tape the company released, and it looks and sounds like they didn't do much when porting it over to the new format. Simple stereo and full screen images have a decidedly VHS quality making this a low tech presentation. Merry Christmas! Here's a DVD you can give to naughty children or estranged family members that would normally get coal. I've ordered at least nine! It's a DVD fruitcake for the new age.

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