📰 CONNOR'S CORNER CHRONICLE
Volume 3 • October 2026
For Kids and Kids at Heart!
🎃 WHEN HALLOWEEN STOLE CHRISTMAS
How one wonderfully strange movie found a home in two holidays
There are Halloween movies.
There are Christmas movies.
And then there's Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas—the wonderfully strange little stop-motion adventure that looked at the calendar and apparently decided:
“Why the hell should we have to choose?”
Released in 1993, the story follows Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, who discovers Christmas Town and becomes completely fascinated by a holiday he doesn't understand. Naturally, Jack responds to this discovery in the most reasonable way possible:
He decides to take over Christmas.
Things go about as well as you'd expect.
But underneath the skeletons, monsters, presents and pumpkins is something surprisingly heartfelt: a story about curiosity, creativity, getting spectacularly carried away, learning from your mistakes—and eventually realizing that being yourself may be considerably better than trying to become somebody else.
More than three decades later, Jack, Sally, Oogie Boogie, Zero and the citizens of Halloween Town haven't disappeared.
They've become toys. Figures. Plushies. LEGO sets. Decorations. Collectibles. Costumes. Keepsakes.
And for generations of kids—and kids at heart—they've become part of the holidays themselves.
🎬 BEHIND THE SCREAMS
Here's one bit of movie trivia worth getting right:
Tim Burton did not direct The Nightmare Before Christmas.
The director was Henry Selick. Burton created the story and characters and produced the film, while Selick directed the stop-motion production. Danny Elfman created the songs and score and supplied Jack Skellington's singing voice; Chris Sarandon provided Jack's speaking voice. Catherine O'Hara voiced Sally and Ken Page voiced Oogie Boogie. Source: D23.
The movie was made in a San Francisco studio and utilized more than 227 animated characters. Even more remarkable, work on some of the songs began before there was a finished screenplay—the music helped give the production something around which animation could begin. Source: D23.
That's an awful lot of painstaking work to answer one important question:
“What happens when a skeleton discovers Christmas?”
Apparently, cinematic history.
🧸 FROM SCREEN TO TOY SHELF
Some movies finish when the credits roll.
Others escape.
The Nightmare Before Christmas became the latter.
Jack's unmistakable pinstripe suit, Sally's patchwork dress, Zero's glowing pumpkin nose and Oogie Boogie's burlap silhouette translated naturally into the world of toys and collectibles.
That's part of what makes collecting fun.
A figure isn't just molded plastic. A plush isn't just fabric. Sometimes an object on a shelf is connected to the first time you watched a movie, something you shared with your kids, a Christmas morning, a Halloween night—or simply a character that made your weird little heart happy.
That's why we believe toys aren't only for kids.
Sometimes they're tiny containers for memories.
And sometimes they're skeletons wearing Santa hats.
🏛️ FROM CULT FAVORITE TO FILM HISTORY
In 2023, The Nightmare Before Christmas was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress National Film Registry.
Films chosen for the Registry are recognized for their cultural, historical or aesthetic significance. The Library of Congress described Nightmare as having become both a Halloween and Yuletide tradition. Source: The Library of Congress.
Thirty years after Jack Skellington first wandered into Christmas Town, the strange little movie that refused to belong to only one holiday had officially become part of American film history.
Not bad for a guy who thought kidnapping Santa was an acceptable project-management strategy.
🌩️ BRICK'S WEATHER CORNER
🧱 TODAY: Outside.
🧱 TONIGHT: Dark outside.
🧱 TOMORROW: Probably outside again.
Seasonal Outlook: Increasing chance of pumpkins with scattered skeletons. Christmas conditions may unexpectedly develop over Halloween Town.
Connor's Corner Chronicle accepts no responsibility for forecasts obtained by licking windows.
💀 BONES' CORNER
Indiana Bones was asked for his professional assessment of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
💀 “Finally, a motion picture with appropriate skeletal representation.”
He then declined further comment and proceeded to—
SHAKE.
RATTLE.
ROLL.
The newsroom has chosen not to investigate.
🕷️ WEBSTER'S WEB
Webster's Pick: Sally.
Why?
She's clever. She's resourceful. She sees trouble coming before everybody else does, and nobody fucking listens—
WEBSTER.
🕷️ “Sorry. Nobody professionally listens.”
We're still working on customer-service training.
✨ THE CORNER THOUGHT
Perhaps that's why The Nightmare Before Christmas still works.
It's strange.
It's imaginative.
It's handmade.
And it never apologizes for being different.
Jack discovers an entirely new world and immediately wants to understand it. He gets things spectacularly wrong—but eventually learns something important about himself.
Imagination doesn't always have to make sense.
Sometimes it simply needs somewhere to go.
At Connor's Corner, we think there's still room in the world for that kind of wonder.
For collecting.
For creating.
For remembering.
For playing.
And most importantly...
For Kids and Kids at Heart.
🎃 CONNOR'S CORNER CHRONICLE
More Than Toys... A World of Possibilities.
Volume 3 • October 2026
TIL ALL ARE ONE.