'The Snowman' is the childhood animation to encapsulate the Christmas spirit and the end of a moment in time

The Snowman holds a moment in time like no other. It's 26 minutes of space in a world of chaos and uncertainty.

This feeling of space and holding the attention, despite being an animation from 1982, is due to the craftsmanship. It was curated together by a team of illustrators who had to render hundreds of thousands of images, based on the short story by Raymond Briggs and then added to and elaborated on by the almost all-female illustration team.

What adds to the power of the story, a tale of a boy who builds a snowman who comes to life and takes him on an adventure, is the music.

Howard Blake, an English composer, conductor, and pianist, composed the soundtrack. He wrote the song 'Walking in the Air' at the beach, which seems unlikely since it was used in a winter story. He originally had the song called 'Flying in the air' but then combined his walk to the beach with the title.

"I had this tune in my head," said Blake recalling his composition. "I'd written it on a beach in Cornwall." It was apparently based on a difficult moment in his life.

The Snowman was directed by Dianne Jackson for Channel 4 and was first shown on 26 December 1982. It was an immediate success. It was nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 55th Academy Awards and won a BAFTA TV Award.

The sense of calm as you watch the animation, even in the technology-overloaded world with high-end graphics and animations oozing from every latest multimedia release, is based on a few factors.

We have a seemingly simple tale. A boy lives with his parents. He seems lonely. He builds a snowman on Christmas Eve and then he goes to sleep. When he awakens it is still the dead of night, the clock is about to strike midnight. He runs down the stairs and out to the garden and discovers his snowman has come to life.

What follows is a flying adventure which sees them visit Santa and dance and celebrate with other snowmen and snowwomen.

I won't spoil the ending in case you haven't seen it.

Let's just say at the end you're held in a moment. You think of the boy's realisation and you think back on your own life and moments of realisation. This is the end of childhood. This is the beginning of a new reality. He does find something in his pocket and we're left with soaring music from Howard Blake to send us back into the sky.

“Books are not missiles, you don’t aim them at anybody," said Raymond Briggs about the creative process. And yet his classic story has become one for everyone.

Briggs, who wrote the original book of The Snowman in 1978, passed away in August of this year, aged 88.

The Film That Changed Christmas, was on Channel 4 on Saturday 17 December. If you missed it, then you can watch on-demand on All4. The Snowman will be broadcast on Channel 4 on Saturday 24 December 2022.