One winter morning a little boy named James wakes up to find that everything outside has turned snow-white. Overjoyed, James rushes downstairs and into the garden, where he begins to build a snowman. James sleeps fitfully, and at midnight he wakes up and decides to check on his snowman. He opens the back door… he can’t believe his eyes… The snowman has come to life! James finds himself face to face with a smiling snowman, who with a polite doff of his hat introduces himself and marks the beginning of magical friendship and marvellous adventure.

Esther and William are too young for the full animated movie The Snowman but they do enjoy watching the clip above and looking at the pictures in our picture book.

To them the snow is as magical as the flying. They watch with awe and wonder beaming from their eyes. They just love the music and the images on the screen. They love staring at the beautiful illustrations in the book.

Christmas 2010

This is a classic story for children told in pictures alone.

The Snowman created by Raymond Briggs and originally published in 1978 is a visually stunning story that captures the imagination and tugs at the heart strings.

We have a beautiful hardback copy of this book and it comes out every Christmas for us all to enjoy and share.

It is also one of our many Christmas traditions to watch this film on Christmas Eve, even if we do have to do it in sections at the moment. Esther and William love the flying scenes and also the Christmas party when we get out their jingle bells and they shake along to the soundtrack.

This is a book that can grow with your children. At the moment Esther and William like spotting things that they recognise in the pictures such as snow, balloons, boy and hat. They like to use their words and their signing as we share the book together. As they get older and their attention span becomes longer I can imagine telling the story to them, as they get older still I can imagine them eagerly retelling the story to me. A little older again and perhaps they will want to write their version of the story, or make an animation themselves. Perhaps they will compose magical flying music of their own?

David and I went to see a screening of The Snowman a few years ago accompanied by a full orchestra. It was wonderful. I hope that one year we will do something similar with Esther and William.

The Snowman is a wonderful story full of the magic of the season.

A story of friendship and adventure.

A story that says so much without actually saying a word!