21 Christmas Cartoons to Watch With Your Family, Newest to Oldest❄️
Beyond the parties and the food, watching a Christmas cartoon together is one of the few activities that gets the whole family into the same room. It is a good way to recharge at the end of the year, when the cool season arrives and everyone wants to be a little closer to each other.
So which ones stay with you? Here are 21 Christmas animations, listed from the newest to the oldest, plus the two arriving in cinemas this season.
And if you haven’t decorated your Christmas tree yet, take a look at our Thai Christmas ornaments. You may find the perfect characters to bring it to life!
Discover our Christmas ornaments collection
A short history of the Christmas cartoon
Animation has a longer history than most people expect. It begins with drawings on cave walls around 1,600 BC, and by the reign of Ramesses II there were 110 sequential images of the goddess Isis carved into a temple, one continuous movement rendered frame by frame in stone.
The word we use today, animation, means to bring to life. Computer graphics eventually gave animators the realism they had been chasing for centuries, and when that met the imagery of Christmas, with Santa Claus at its centre, the Christmas cartoon was born.
Since then animators have returned to the same set of symbols again and again: red, green and white, snow and firelight, and a cast that everyone recognises without being told. Santa and his companions, the snowman, the gingerbread man, the candy cane. What follows is which of those films are actually worth your evening.
Coming this Christmas
Two new animations reach cinemas in time for the season this year.
The Cat in the Hat (2026)
Bill Hader voices the Cat, who arrives to lift the spirits of two siblings struggling after a move to a new town. In cinemas from 6 November, right at the start of the decorating season.
The Angry Birds Movie 3 (2026)
The birds return in the prime Christmas slot, released 23 December. Not a Christmas story as such, but it is the family animation of the holidays this year and the one children will be asking for.
21 Christmas cartoons, newest to oldest
There have been a great many Christmas animations over the years. These are the ones people come back to, listed from the newest to the oldest.
1. That Christmas (2024)
Based on the books by Richard Curtis, the writer behind Love Actually. Several lives intertwine in one seaside town over a single Christmas, with the warmth and humour you would expect from him. The newest film on this list. On Netflix.
2. Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (2022)
An animated musical retelling of Dickens, and the darkest choice on this list. It sits with regret, change and compassion rather than rushing to the happy ending, which makes it better suited to older children and to adults. On Netflix.
3. Robin Robin (2021)
Stop-motion from Aardman, the studio behind Wallace and Gromit. A robin raised by a family of mice begins to wonder where she actually belongs. Thirty minutes long, made by hand in felt, and gentle enough for the youngest child in the room. On Netflix.
4. Klaus (2019)
The one most people now name as the best Christmas animation of the last decade. A spoiled postman is posted to a frozen town in the far north where nobody has spoken to their neighbour in generations. He meets Klaus, a reclusive toymaker, and between them they accidentally invent the entire myth of Santa Claus. Hand-drawn in an era when almost nothing is, and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. On Netflix.
5. The Grinch (2018)
Illumination's version of the Dr. Seuss story, with Benedict Cumberbatch as the Grinch. Brighter and funnier than the earlier adaptations, and the most child-friendly of the three. If your family knows the story but has only seen the older versions, start here.
6. Angela's Christmas (2018)
A short Irish animation about a small girl who decides the baby in the church nativity looks cold, and carries him home to warm him up. Twenty-five minutes, and the quietest thing on this page. There is a sequel too, Angela's Christmas Wish.
7. Olaf's Frozen Adventure (2017)
The Frozen spin-off, following Olaf the snowman as he sets out to find what Christmas traditions actually are, for Anna and Elsa, who have never celebrated one. It runs only 21 minutes and it is packed with enough to keep a room laughing throughout.
8. Frozen (2013)
The snow queen's story, with an ice palace that still looks extraordinary years later. There is no Santa Claus in it, but the symbols of Christmas run all the way through: reindeer, a snowman, and snowflakes falling across almost every scene. The writing is what made it last, and it is why there are two films rather than one.
If the children ask which reindeer is which, we have all nine answered here: meet Santa's reindeer one by one.
9. Rise of The Guardians (2012)
The one children ask for most at Christmas, because it brings the entire North Pole cast into a single film and gives them a genuinely frightening villain. Five guardians of children's hope, dreams and happiness, led by Santa Claus, alongside Jack Frost, the Easter Bunny, the Sandman and the Tooth Fairy, unite to protect children's dreams from the Boogeyman.
10. Arthur Christmas (2011)
Arthur is Santa's youngest son. His brother has just delivered presents to every child on earth except one, out of a hundred million. Arthur, who has no experience at all, has to get that last gift delivered before sunrise on Christmas morning.
11. Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas (2011)
The prehistoric animals are back, this time with a Christmas theme and with Santa Claus alongside them. If you enjoy the mischief of these films, do not skip this one.
12. Dragons: Gift of The Night Fury (2011)
The Christmas spin-off from How to Train Your Dragon, the film that had every child in the country asking for a dragon of their own. The same friendships, the same humour, and a festive setting that suits them surprisingly well.
13. The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol (2011)
Christmas without the Smurfs would feel odd. They were on television long before the animation boom, and eventually became a film series of their own. Here Papa Smurf gathers everyone for Christmas, and given the children in that village, chaos is guaranteed.
14. Kung Fu Panda Holiday (2010)
Po and his friends celebrate Christmas in the land of dragons. It blends the Christmas cartoon with a Chinese setting, complete with lanterns and Christmas bells, and dresses Po and his friends in red and gold, the colours of Christmas and of Chinese good fortune at the same time. As for the comedy, Po is involved, so the answer is yes.
15. A Christmas Carol (2009)
If you want a Christmas animation with real weight to it, this is the one. Jim Carrey voices a man so hardened against Christmas that the ghost of his old friend has to intervene to release him from the way he treats everyone around him, and open him to the season.
16. Merry Madagascar (2009)
Alex the lion and Marty the zebra, the pair from Central Park Zoo, take on a chaotic new mission that fills Christmas night with laughter. And there is a second helping: The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper, in which the penguins run a secret operation on Christmas Eve.
17. Shrek the Halls (2007)
The green ogre and his friends take nearly every element of Christmas and build the episode out of it, from Santa Claus as a guest to the gingerbread man as a friend, with the Disney princesses turning up as well. Adults enjoy it, children love it, and it does not wear out on repeat.
18. The Polar Express (2004)
Beautifully designed animation that carries you into a world of ice and falling snow aboard the Polar Express, bound for the North Pole. A boy who does not believe Santa Claus is real boards the train to find out, and the journey is the story. It took 183 million dollars at the box office, and it still holds a family's attention from beginning to end.
19. Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas (1999)
No Christmas cartoon list is complete without Mickey Mouse and his friends. Disney did not stop at one: there is also Mickey's Christmas Carol, Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas, and Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse. Enough to fill an entire evening.
20. Beauty and The Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997)
A special chapter from Beauty and The Beast, following the princess and the prince through a new adventure in deep white snow, on a Christmas night full of cloud and stars.
21. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Tim Burton at his strangest and best. The king of Halloween grows tired of nightmares and decides he would rather be Santa Claus and bring children happiness instead. Whether the king of the dark can manage Christmas is the whole question, and the answer is more moving than the premise suggests.
Which one to put on tonight
- Small children: Robin Robin, Angela's Christmas, Olaf's Frozen Adventure
- The whole family together: Klaus, The Polar Express, Arthur Christmas, That Christmas
- Older children and adults: Scrooge: A Christmas Carol, The Nightmare Before Christmas, A Christmas Carol
- Pure comedy: The Grinch, Shrek the Halls, Merry Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda Holiday
- Under 30 minutes: Robin Robin, Angela's Christmas, Olaf's Frozen Adventure
See 60 Christmas decorations for your home
Where to watch them
Nobody wonders where to find a Christmas cartoon any more. Most of the modern titles on this list are on Netflix, the classics move between the major streaming services each December, and the rest are available to buy online, through an app, or from a shop in any mall. Everywhere is Christmas.
And once the film is on, the room around it matters too. A tree, a garland at the door, a stocking on the wall, all handmade in Thailand.