Haley Ruyle
hruyle@lc.edu

The Nightmare Before Christmas is an ultimate holiday classic created by Tim Burton and is known for playing often on television, whether it be either the Halloween season or the Christmas season. But the debate still stands, which holiday does this movie truly represent? And what time of the year should we watch the Nightmare Before Christmas?

The Nightmare Before Christmas is mainly about Jack Skeleton, the Pumpkin King of Halloweentown, who is populated by various monsters and ghouls who prepare for Halloween every year. Jack, however, has lost his Halloween spirit and wants to find something new to fill an unexplainable void in him. As Jack ventures off into the woods, he finds Christmastown and sets his sights on stealing the traditions of this holiday to bring something new to Halloweentown.

After stumbling across Christmastown, he made his mission to celebrate Christmas, but alas things did not work out as well as Jack had hoped. Mixing the two Holidays, Halloween and Christmas, caused confusion and lack of holiday Spirit, which made Jack very unhappy.

When the Oogie Boogie man found out Jack’s plan to steal Christmas, he had an evil plan to kidnap Santa Claus. Oogie then also planned to eat both Santa and Sally, the girl who was trying to stop the Oogie Boogie man and was in love with Jack.

After Jack realized that the two Holidays shouldn’t be mixed together and that the Oogie Boogie man had stolen Santa Claus and Sally, Jack was determined to put a stop to the Oogie Boogie’s evil plans and put everything back in order.

So all in all the movie is more about the spirit of Halloween just trying to find its way again, though Christmas was a big part of it, regaining and eventually finding the spirit of Halloween was the main objective of the story.