I hope everyone had a safe, warm and wonderful Christmas. In the spirit of the season, watch Ruffus The Dog’s Christmas Carol, a really wonderful brand new Christmas special that was funded via IndieGoGo and is based on the Ruffus The Dog television series from the 1990s.

You can watch more Rufus The Dog at www.ruffusthedog.net.

Santa in Animal Land is a vintage – and somewhat infamous – Christmas puppet film from 1948. The puppets in the film were built and performed by Alfred Wallace, who was a fairly well-known American puppeteer in the 1930s, `40s and `50s.

In typical Krellant style (see previous post), Frank Feltman tells a story of holiday mishap, and his rescue from one unlikely cat…in verse!

It’s the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre’s rendition of Baby, It’s Cold Outside. Mildly not safe for work (or the easily offended).

A little holiday themed fun from Mark Gale’s Frank The Horse. Enjoy!

Via Sons of Punch.

Christmas parades in Alpine Regions like Austria and Bavaria are a little different from what most of us are used to in the rest of the world. There every December rowdy young men dress up like the Krampus (a mythical beast who, according to legend, carries away naughty children to his lair to eat) and roam the streets with rusty chains and bells, scaring the bejeezes out of little kids.

An unusual tradition? Maybe, but look at those amazing masks and costumes!

Via Uniglobe The Travel Times.

This is a little late for Christmas, but fun nonetheless…Samuel Seide took out his full body costume puppet Morris The Hunchback and used it to help raise money for the Salvation Army during the holidays. Samuel originally built Morris as a Halloween project (click the link to see how he did it). You can also check out some of Morris The Hunchback’s Halloween exploits.

Even though the holidays are over you can still contribute to the Salvation Army, which raises money to help support valuable programs for those in need year-round. Donate online at www.salvationarmy.com (U.S.) or www.salvationarmy.ca (Canada).

Sad that the holiday is over? Well, Arthur Christmas looks like it will be something to look forward to next year. Directed by Sarah Smith and Barry Cook, it’s being produced by the delightful folks at Aardman Animation.

Grant Baciocco – the host of the Jim Henson Company podcast – also produces the longest-running Christmas podcast on the web, Grant’s Advent Calendar Podcast. It’s a really fun show and he’s had two puppet themed days this year; on Day 8 he paid a visit to Swazzle to check out their Audrey II and he spent Day 14 with Lolly Lardpop, performed by Leslie Carrara-Rudolph.

I somehow missed this the first time around, so here’s A Very Furry Christmas, an offbeat Christmas installment of Transylvania TV.

Fliptoppers is a new-ish puppet sketch troupe based in L.A. At first glance they’re doing the same sort of Muppet Monster-derivative stuff you see all over YouTube (something I’m making an effort to post less and less of here lately), but they’re solid puppeteers with lots of potential. You can watch their Christmas video here and catch a quick look behind-the-scenes.

Little’s Creatures has been making holiday puppet videos all month too. Here’s their latest Christmas video.

If you enjoyed yesterday’s post, here’s a little more Christmas fun with Puppet What What from fellow Unraku-er Robin Polfuss.

This clip has been kicking around the web for years, but here’s a little holiday outtake nuttiness from two of the masters, Frank Oz and Jerry Nelson.

And finally, although he has no new videos this year, my favourite all-time Christmas puppet character remains Steve The Snowball.

Have a very Merry Christmas everybody!

Santa Claus gave us a special mission this year at Unraku, we were asked to have a puppet character host Talk With Santa, a live local TV show in several Southern Ontario TV markets that children can call in to and talk with Santa on the air. Hosting duties fell to Puppet What What, a lovable little character we originally developed for an unproduced project who’s gone on to develop a small, but devoted following on BlogTV.

Puppet What What is performed by Robin Polfuss, who had a variety of assistants from Unraku throughout the week (including yours truly).

It was a lot of fun working with Santa at Christmas, although I can’t say that I recommend the daily commute to his workshop in the North Pole!

Via the Unraku Blog.