A Christmas Past - Kino DVD compilation of early 1900s Christmas shorts which has been shown on TCM

Have any of you seen "A Christmas Past" on TCM or have this DVD? If any of you haven't, this is a must see, especially if one is a silent film fan, a student of film history and/or Christmas movies. The shorts featured are these selections, mostly from Thomas Edison.

• A Holiday Pageant At Home (5 mins. 1901. Producer Unknown)
• A Winter Straw Ride (7 mins. 1906. Edison Film Manufacturing Corp. Photographed by Edwins S. Porter)
  
• A Trap For Santa (16 mins. 1909. Biograph Film Co. Dir. D. W. Griffith. Photographed by G. W. Blitzer)
  
• A Christmas Accident (15 mins. 1912. Edison Film Manufacturing Corp. Dir. Bannister Merwin. Written by Annie Eliot Trumbull)
  
• The Adventure Of the Wrong Santa Claus: An Adventure of Octavius -- Amateur Detective (14 mins. Edison Film Manufacturing Corp. Written by Frederic Arnold Kummer)
  
• Santa Claus vs. Cupid (16 mins. 1915. Edison Film Manufacturing Corp. Dir. Will Louis. Written by Alan Crosland)
  
• Santa Claus (29 mins. 1925. Presented by Mr. and Mrs. F.E. Kleinschmidt)
  
• A Christmas Carol (10 mins. 1910. Edison Film Manufacturing Corp. From the novel by Charles Dickens)
  
• The Night Before Christmas (1905. Edison Film Manufacturing Corp. Dir. Edwin S. Porter)

To order the DVD: Amazon or Kino Lorber Home Video

 

Christmas Past (tcm.com) to view it on WatchTCM.

 

I used to watch this on TCM every year. I really enjoy it. It was something of a holiday tradition (my A Christmas Story, kind of) for me. I have tried to turn others on to this, but even some of my hardcore Christmas friends can't get past the antiquity of it.

I've been looking for a used copy of the disc for years. I am being patient because I know, ultimately, I'm the only one who will watch it. Niche titles like this one seem to rarely turn up second hand, but one day...

 

The Kino website has it for sale for $8. A Christmas Past (DVD) - Kino Lorber Home Video Simply order it there and be content.

 

The antiquity is exactly a major part of what makes it appealing to me.

 

I am glad that @Michael has learned about this from me.

 

I learn about a lot of cool things from you my friend...
MERRY CHRISTMAS! Thanks so much.

 

Thanks. Merry Christmas.

 

Indeed! : ) hope you have a very Merry Christmas too! Just can't say it enough! great times here at the Forum!.

 

Guess what, this thread allowed the remaining DVD copies to sell out at the Kino website

 

MovieMars has just shipped my copy of this DVD and they do have 1 copy left. Movie Mars

I credit my promotion of this to cause this demand. I have even posted about this on Facebook as well.

 

Kino's website has this back in stock: Kino Lorber Home Video

Essential stuff

 

A Trap For Santa is the best film in this collection, IMO.

 

Thank you again Brad, a wonderful collection for Christmas to enjoy.

and very Merry Christmas to you too!

 

You too. While A Trap For Santa is the best film in the collection, all of them are great and you are watching these for what they are. In short, this is a classic film delight from the early 1900s. The antiquity is a major part of what makes this collection what it is.

 

The DVD is no longer in print, BTW.

 

The individual shorts are in the public domain though due to the age of the films.

 

Currently in the Watch TCM app.

 

I watched it on Christmas Eve. The first hour+ is a bit of a hard watch, imo. The girls’ hayride was mayhem in a good way, though. Once they get to Santa’s offseason things really impove.

 

Still, this is a delight to watch as a whole. Very few of the shorts are those I would watch separately. A Trap For Santa for one and the ones in the last portion.

 

OK, I officially count these as Christmas films.

 

This collection is currently on the Watch TCM app. My favorite is "A Winter Straw Ride". Watching people frolic in the snow over 100 years ago is priceless. I believe it also has the very first snow whitewashing ever captured on film. I enjoyed this so much I showed it to my daughter on Christmas day. It was great to see her realize that, while times change, the things people enjoyed doing in winter then are pretty much the same as now.