Big Susan is a 1947 children's fantasy story written and illustrated by Elizabeth Orton Jones. It is generally considered a Christmas story, reflecting the author's love of the holiday season. (She was born on June 25, or, according to her, half past Christmas.)
The plot deals with the Doll family, a family of dolls that belong to Susan, or Big Susan as they call her, for she is more than double their size. One night a year (Christmas) they come to life, and a fantastical story of Christmas miracles begins.
The novel, along with Twig, is one of Jones' most popular books. It was out of print for a few years, until the recent 55th anniversary edition came out, in 2002.
A Doll's House is a three-act play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month. The play is set in a Norwegian town circa 1879.
Susan Mary Cooper is an English author of children's books. She is best known for The Dark Is Rising, a contemporary fantasy series set in England and Wales, which incorporates British mythology such as the Arthurian legends and Welsh folk heroes. For that work, in 2012 she won the lifetime Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association, recognizing her contribution to writing for teens. In the 1970s two of the five novels were named the year's best English-language book with an "authentic Welsh background" by the Welsh Books Council.
The Raggy Dolls is a 1986-1994 British cartoon series which originally aired on ITV. The series is set in Mr Grimes' Toy Factory, where imperfect dolls are thrown into a reject bin. While unobserved by human eyes, the dolls come to life and climb out of the reject bin to have adventures. The series was designed to encourage children to think positively about physical disabilities. 112 episodes were produced.
The Nutcracker, Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination. The plot is an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The ballet's first choreographer was Marius Petipa, with whom Tchaikovsky had worked three years earlier on The Sleeping Beauty, assisted by Lev Ivanov. Although the complete and staged The Nutcracker ballet was not as successful as had been the 20-minute Nutcracker Suite that Tchaikovsky had premiered nine months earlier, The Nutcracker soon became popular.
My Family is a British sitcom created and initially co-written by Fred Barron, which was produced by DLT Entertainment and Rude Boy Productions, and broadcast by BBC One for eleven series between 2000 and 2011, with Christmas specials broadcast from 2002 onwards. My Family was voted 24th in the BBC's "Britain's Best Sitcom" in 2004 and was the most watched sitcom in the United Kingdom in 2008. As of 2011, it is one of only twelve British sitcoms to pass the 100-episode mark. In April 2020, BBC One began airing the series from the first episode in an 8 pm slot on Friday nights; along with this all 11 series were made available on BBC iPlayer.
Olive Marie Osmond is an American singer, actress, television host and a member of the show business family the Osmonds. Although she was never an official member of her family's singing group, she gained success as a country and pop music artist and television variety show cohost in the 1970s and 1980s. Her best-known song is a remake of the country pop ballad "Paper Roses". From 1976 to 1979, she and her singer brother Donny Osmond hosted the television variety show Donny & Marie.
Trina Schart Hyman was an American illustrator of children's books. She illustrated over 150 books, including fairy tales and Arthurian legends. She won the 1985 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing Saint George and the Dragon, retold by Margaret Hodges.
Mrs. Claus is the legendary wife of Santa Claus, the Christmas gift-bringer in Western Christmas tradition.
Elizabeth Orton Jones was an American illustrator and writer of children's books. She won the 1945 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing Prayer for a Child, after being a runner-up one year earlier.
Barbie in the Nutcracker is a 2001 computer-animated fantasy film co-produced by Mainframe Entertainment and Mattel Entertainment, and distributed by Artisan Home Entertainment.
"The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" is a story written in 1816 by Prussian author E. T. A. Hoffmann, in which young Marie Stahlbaum's favorite Christmas toy, the Nutcracker, comes alive and, after defeating the evil Mouse King in battle, whisks her away to a magical kingdom populated by dolls. The story was originally published in Berlin in German as part of the collection Kinder-Märchen, Children's Stories, by In der Realschulbuchhandlung. In 1892, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov turned Alexandre Dumas' adaptation of the story into the ballet The Nutcracker.
The Tale of Two Bad Mice is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, and published by Frederick Warne & Co. in September 1904. Potter took inspiration for the tale from two mice caught in a cage-trap in her cousin's home and a doll's house being constructed by her editor and publisher Norman Warne as a Christmas gift for his niece Winifred. While the tale was being developed, Potter and Warne fell in love and became engaged, much to the annoyance of Potter's parents, who were grooming their daughter to be a permanent resident and housekeeper in their London home.
The Story of Holly and Ivy is a 1958 children's book written by Rumer Godden. On first publication it was illustrated by Adrienne Adams, but later editions were illustrated by Barbara Cooney; the British Puffin edition is illustrated by Sheila Bewley. The story treats the simultaneous events of wishing for love, in Ivy, a young orphaned girl, and Holly, a Christmas doll.
Christine Rimmer is a USA Today and Waldenbooks bestselling U.S. writer of over 60 romance novels, which she began writing in 1987. She also published poems and short stories in a number of small literary journals.
Young Lucretia and Other Stories is a collection of thirteen short stories by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman. The stories were originally published individually in literary magazines such as Harper's Young People and St. Nicholas Magazine between 1887 and 1892. They were later collected and reprinted by Harper & Brothers in 1892. These stories primarily feature children who learn moral lessons after misbehaving.
The Living Doll was a 1908 French short silent Christmas film by Georges Méliès. The film, combining American ideas about Santa Claus with Méliès's fantasy style and a modern touch, followed the adventures of a young girl, Polly, one Christmas night, as she escapes kidnappers, travels to Santa's palace, and—by changing places with a large doll—goes with Santa on a giftgiving journey by airplane.
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