Story #1 sees Santa down with a case of the flu. Knowing Gargamel is a sorcerer, Claus seeks a potion to help him complete his rounds. The dastardly medicine man finds opportunity to kidnap Santa and become the Jolly Old Fatman in hopes of infiltrating the Smurf village and stealing some for his Christmas dinner.
Story #2 finds Gargamel captured by a hungry ogre. Thinking quickly, the fiend convinces the ogre that Smurfs make better tasting meals. There's quite a bit of tension as the Ogre with Gargamel still in his clutches, inch closer to Smurf village!
Story #3 starts off with a the Smurfs building snowmen. With warmer weather in the forecast, the snowmen come alive, trying to make it to the safety of the frigid Northern lands. But an encounter with Gargamel results in the snowmen betraying their Smurf creators.
Story #4 has the Smurfs exploring their nearby territory. Things are awfully quiet with all the woodland creatures taking warm refuge from the winter weather. All this quiet results in Sleepy Smurf cuddling up in a dormouse hutch. As the rest of the Smurfs write their letters to Santa, Sleepy Smurf and friend find themselves unknowingly the target of a hungry poacher- because they're sleeping through their entire predicament!!!
Story #5 stars Lumberjack Smurf who while looking for the perfect Christmas tree, almost chops down a talking pine. Turns out that the verbose tree is actually a little girl who was turned into a conifer by a witch.
The final tale is a reunion between Gargamel and Santa. Faced with being on the naughty list again, the wizard can earn a gift for Christmas if he delivers gifts to all the Smurfs. But should he fall into temptation, Gargamel will be turned into an earthworm!
When I grew up, religious groups proclaimed the Smurfs to be agents of the devil. There's a little bit of magic in the book. It's mostly Gargamel's doing. Papa Smurf does refer to a book of prophecy in the Orge story. But by the end of it, he burns the book wanting to make his own destiny. There is some Looney Tunes level slapstick. That's mostly at the hands of Jokey Smurf and his love of those exploding gift boxes.
What got on my nerves was the progressive use of the word 'Smurf'. It's gently sprinkled into the vocabulary in the first couple of tales. By the end of this book, it literally peppered it to the point of overuse. I mean, it smurfingly smurfed getting on my smurfing smurfs! (Hopefully, you get my drift...) It's a Christmas tree! Not a Christmas smurf!!! I don't care what the back panel on the book says...
This was a great assortment of holiday and winter time Smurfs stories by their legendary Belgian creator, Peyo. But why was that ogre story thrown in? I would have been with just those 5 other stories alone in order to make this a more cohesive collection. The only reason I can figure out for addition of the ogre oddity is that this book is about 55 pages long. Without the 8 pages of 'The Ogre and the Smurfs ', this 2013 offering from Papercutz would barely clock in at 47 pages. I have the paperback edition which at $5.99 is a steal. But I bet the smaller page count just wouldn't have been feasible for Papercutz', hardcover edition.Lots of seasonal fun with a small detour in the middle. Sure to delight generations of Smurfs fans.
Worth Consuming!
Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.
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