Once the feasts have been eaten and the presents unwrapped, with scraps of tinsel and wrapping paper littering the floor, my family and I sit down and watch “The Snowman.” It’s a 26-minute animated film about a snowman who comes to life and takes the child who built him on a flying adventure. And it’s my favourite holiday tradition.
As far as I can remember, I’ve done this almost every Boxing Day since “The Snowman” made its Channel 4 TV debut on Dec. 26, 1982, in England, where I was born. First, it was a picture book by the British writer and illustrator Raymond Briggs, published in 1978. When I came along a year later, it was one of my first books. But the screen version is what stuck. We had the VHS, then a DVD, and now we stream it on YouTube.