A Princess Christmas, Part 5: From Fireball to Snowball, Disney's Final Days of Advent Begins Spicy but Ends Nicely, Offering a Snow White Christmas in the End

Disney's Princess Advent Calendar Dec. 21-24

December 21st

Merida's Challenge doesn't make much sense when analyzed critically, feeling like a tale made up on the fly over a family campfire. The artwork is sublime, however, offering another convincing counterpoint to the prerendered Pixar film from which it's inspired. Moral: Too much courage leads to recklessness; courage for its own sake only leads to mistake.

December 23rd

Though another film adaptation, at least this one novelizes one of the best in the Disney canon. Beauty and the Beast is one of the all-time greats--a genuine Disney classic--and the calendar's tiny booklet does a fair job encapsulating the broader beats of the larger story. Certain characters are sadly minimized, and there's certainly no wondrous musical score accompanying the text. But with a little imagination, this is still one beauty of a retelling.

Moral: True love transcends all bounds, physical or otherwise.

December 24th

December 24th brings the first and sweetest princess to herald Christmas Morning in her winsome, matchless way. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is not only a perennial classic, but stands as one of the most important films ever made. The darling, warbling princess is the feminine ideal, the template of virtue from which all women of grace hope to emulate. Unlike some of her modern peers, Snow White doesn't try to be anything but good--she's the definition of romantic innocence and good sense brought to breath in exquisite hand-drawn form. The fairy tale of an evil queen and kindly dwarfs and a handsome prince's life-giving kiss has been told over and over...but Disney's rendition still beams supreme. Why? Because it has the best heroine, the perfect Snow White.

Moral: Kindness magnifies one's life, bringing hope to the lonely and light to the slighted.

The 21st brings a unique tale in Merida's Challenge, wherein the maiden's three brothers attempt to climb the land's tallest mountain. Unsurprisingly, one of the three, Hamish, loses his grip while climbing upward, leaving him dangling helplessly as his fellow siblings rush to get Merida's help. When she arrives some time later, the boy is still somehow holding on; with her other two brothers' help, she devises an unlikely pulley system that finally draws Hamish safely back to the ground. Seems the four of them, beyond sharing the same sense of bravado, also make a great team

This adaptation of the movie Brave sees its heroine resisting a forced marriage, getting her mother Elinor turned into a bear, and then trying to prevent her father from murdering said Elinor-bear. It was always a weird, awkward story...and this truncated version does it no favors.

Moral: Personal volition and choice trumps tradition and royal law. Or, rebelling against family custom doesn't mean abandoning love. Or, mothers are unbearable until they literally become bears.

December 22nd

Fin...Happy 2025!