For many months Shrek has been ignoring Donkey's excitable babbling about Christmas. However it is only at the very last minute that he learns that this is something special to Fiona and the kids too. Going out in a rush to get things organised, Shrek buys a "how to" book on the perfect Christmas and sets about giving Fiona the perfect family Christmas. Problem is, Donkey has a different understanding of the word "family" than Shrek....
I hadn't seen Shrek The Third when I watched this but when one reviewer mentioned this short film as being the reason they had nothing good left for the film, I thought it was worth twenty or so minutes. And indeed it was as it produced a perfect piece of animated fun for Christmas Eve. The story is about the meaning of Christmas and it has a great moral at the end on how it doesn't have to be perfect because no family is. This worked better for me than the usual sugar coated Christmas ideals that get served up each year but this was a side issue for me as really I was there for the laughs.
Fortunately these are present in spades with the film being consistently funny with a hatful of really good laugh-out-loud moments. The German pigs are a treat and the gingerbread man's horrific experience with Santa is a clever reference as well as being very funny while Donkey of course does his usual fast talking stuff. Shrek and Fiona are, as normal, handed slightly weaker material as they are at the core of the film and thus not able to just drop in for a funny line or strong scene, but they are still fun. My favourite moment was Puss losing himself playing with a bauble ("I have shamed myself") that had me rolling. The voice work is roundly good and the laughs are reasonably evenly spread out for everyone to get a bite.
Overall then a very funny and warming Christmas animation that demonstrates the sort of touch and humour that made us all love Shrek in the first place.
