Klaus: The best origin story of Santa Claus

Dec 23, 2023

I have watched, or have attempted to watch, a handful of films with an origin story of Santa Claus. Perhaps the most famous one is “The Santa Clause” starring Tim Allen. Another that I attempted to watch, but eventually turned off, because it was a terrible movie, was “A Boy Called Christmas.” And there was also the still motion capture movie called “Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town” which is ‘okay’ at best. But by far the most intriguing, fun, invigorating, and heart-touching origin story that I've ever seen for the old Saint Nick is the animated Netflix movie named “Klaus.”

This strangely enough begins with a high-born young man named Jesper who has failed all of his assignments in life, purposefully it seems, that he may stay home and live a life of luxury with his father. His latest failure is as a postal worker. But his father, not wishing him to be a Ne'er-do-well, forces him to go to the town called Smeerensburg and collect thousands of letters and if he fails he is cut off from luxury and inheritance. This is, of course, an impossible task where many others have failed because of the feuding and hatred-filled populace of Smeerenburg.

What follows is a heartily comedic story of this young man trying to collect these thousands of letters in any way possible, and eventually settling on creating a myth based on a local woodcutter in the mountains who makes toys named Klaus. This woodcutter lives in the mountains as a recluse, is essentially the Santa Claus character, and even looks the part has his own story of marrying, he and his wife are unable to bear children when they had dreams of a large family. Eventually, his wife dies and he is left alone with an empty house full of toys.

The unlikely coming together of these two men is Klaus wishing to see the smiles and hear the laughter of the children in this depressing and deplorable town and Jesper wishing to collect letters selfishly. Together at night, they deliver the toys and eventually, the myth of Santa Claus is built. Eventually, the stories of Klaus knowing if you are a good child or bad, spread among the children hilariously fabricated by Jesper because of a bully of a child who had been mistreating Jesper. The children begin to do good in their town, against the wills of their parents who wish to continue to do ill toward the opposing feuding family. These children do good and help clean up their town and the hatred of the town begins to be healed between the two warring factions.

Review: Klaus (2019). A film that demonstrates how ordinary… | by The_FilmPost | Medium

The love interest of Jesper is a school teacher who had taken the job in this town with a heart of hope but her hope had slowly been dashed to pieces, by the disreputable feuding town, to the point that she was catching fish to sell to try and escape. She has become bitter and untrusting as much as anyone in the town. But as these children with a new light of hope entered their eyes, they wished to write letters to Klaus for gifts. But most or all could not write, they needed a school teacher to write letters to Klaus. It is a powerful event to watch the change overcome this hard woman who has had her goodness and her hopes stamped out have her heart melted by the children, that she had no hope in up to this point. Once more she allowed hope into her heart and she became the teacher she always wished to be.

There's a beautiful musical montage that makes me weep almost every time, where it shows the children changing their ways and cleaning up their town, the school teacher gaining hope once more and teaching the children. The hatred and the hurt of the feuding of the town beginning to heal. The parents begin to follow the forgiving examples of their children and begin to befriend their feuding neighbors. This musical montage makes those three or four minutes more worthwhile than any other origin story of Santa Claus that I have ever seen.

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