Christmas Unwrapped

Christmas Unwrapped is a 1997 one-hour documentary produced in 1997 for the History Channel. It is narrated by CBS news correspondent Harry Smith, and has been issued on both VHS and DVD. It is telecast every Christmas season on the History Channel.

The documentary traces the evolution of the celebration of Christmas from ancient times until the present day. It is sprinkled with comments from such luminaries as Jean Shepherd, Alan Dundes and Forrest Church, among others, and makes liberal use of film and television clips from It's a Wonderful Life, Mickey's Christmas Carol, rare silent film versions of A Visit from St. Nicholas, the film A Christmas Story, and a seldom seen, extremely low-budget, 1949 television version of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (which is, however, mistakenly identified as having been made in 1958).

Several aspects of Christmas are touched on - the bringing of Christmas trees to England and to the U.S., the writing of A Visit from St. Nicholas (aka. 'Twas the Night Before Christmas), the evolution of Santa Claus, and the writing of the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol.

Source

IMDB page for Christmas Unwrapped [1]