The Stableboy's Christmas

"The Stableboy's Christmas" is a short that ran in 1978 as an episode of the Lutheran Television TV series, "This Is the Life," that ran from 1952 to 1988. The film is based on a production of The Marionette Theatre of the Word. It's a live action set in the present, and the time of the birth of Christ. It's a story about selfishness and giving.

Tammy is the girl in the present who wants to keep the doll that her parents bought as a gift for her cousin. Instead, she would give her cousin an older doll that she no longer wants. When she throws a little tantrum, she slams down a marionette figure under their Christmas tree. The figure comes to life as a stableboy, David. He calls Tammy on her selfishness and says she doesn't know the meaning of Christmas. When the inn owner calls the stableboy, the story moves to that time 2,000 years earlier.

The stableboy is with the shepherds when the angel appears to them. The story fills in much more than the Bible accounts of the nativity and visit of the magi. The baby is born in the stable where the stableboy sleeps and the inn keeper, magi, stableboy and shepherds kneel to worship him. Then, the movie segues back to the present and Tammy waking up from a dream. She tells her parents that she was selfish like the innkeeper and wants to give the new doll to her cousin.