Christmas chronicles

How it works

The film is a family adventure, not a documentary of postal work and not a Rankin/Bass puppet special. Matt Lieberman wrote the screenplay. Chris Columbus’s company produced. Netflix released it on 22 November 2018. The story is set at Christmas in Lowell, Massachusetts. Claire Pierce, a widow, is trying to hold the holiday together. Her children spot Santa, stow away, and cause a wreck that scatters the delivery. The rest of the picture is recovery: reindeer, a police station, and a Santa who is closer to a showman than to a quiet shopkeeper.

Judah Lewis plays Teddy. Darby Camp plays Kate. Kimberly Williams-Paisley plays their mother. Lamorne Morris and Oliver Hudson appear. Goldie Hawn shows up as Mrs. Claus at the end of the first film, which is a door, not the whole plot. If you came for a quiet nativity, this is the wrong reel. If you came for a modern Santa with a motorcycle swagger and a still-working list, this is the title.

The 2018 film, then the sequel

The Christmas Chronicles 2 — on screen also The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two — arrived on Netflix on 25 November 2020. Chris Columbus directed the sequel. Kurt Russell returns as Santa. Goldie Hawn’s Mrs. Claus has a full role, not a cameo. Darby Camp, Judah Lewis, and Kimberly Williams-Paisley return. New players include Julian Dennison, Jahzir Bruno, Tyrese Gibson, and Malcolm McDowell. The children are older. The trouble moves to a larger Christmas-machine plot, still aimed at a family audience.

2018: The Christmas Chronicles, Clay Kaytis, Netflix, Kurt Russell as Santa. Children in both: Kate (Darby Camp) and Teddy (Judah Lewis). 2020: The Christmas Chronicles 2, Chris Columbus, Mrs. Claus in the foreground.

Not the same as The Santa Clause series, Elf, or The Year Without a Santa Claus. Titles collide in December rows. “Chronicles” is this Netflix pair. It is not a history book of the feast, and it is not a church pageant. If a thumbnail shows Tim Allen, you have the other franchise. If it shows clay figures and Heat Miser, you have the 1974 special. Read the year and the distributor before you press play for a room of children who asked for “the Santa one.”

A movie Santa still has to finish the route. Style on the sleigh does not replace the list. Watch order is release order: 2018 then 2020. The second film assumes you know the Pierce kids and this Santa’s face. You can start on the sequel; you will miss why the cameo in the first one mattered. Neither film is a substitute for Christmas Day itself. They are December entertainment on a streaming calendar. Runtime sits in ordinary feature length; if you need the minute count for a bedtime, read the title card on your own screen, because cuts and credits differ by file.