Why The Church Of Satan Recommends 'The Snowman' Christmas Special
There are three eternal Christmas movie traditions: It’s a Wonderful Life, telling people your favorite Christmas movie is Die Hard “because, see, it’s not a typical Christmas movie! I am very interesting,” and The Snowman. We mainly watch that last one at Christmas not because it’s winter-themed etc., but because when someone catches you bawling your eyes out while watching it, you can say you were just thinking of Jesus or something. Doing a super sick BMX jump.
The 1982 animated special is about a boy who goes on a magical adventure with a snowman who came to life, only to lose his friend the next day when it melts and hurts in all the right ways. It has caused the toughest people to totally wet their faces, yes, but it’s also beautiful with its message about the ephemeral nature of life and how important it is to cherish every moment we have on this planet. Those are also the reasons why The Church of Satan whole(black)heartedly recommends The Snowman.
The Church actually has a whole list of recommended movies that they claim capture their philosophy. Some instantly make sense if all your information about Satanism comes from people who genuinely believe that the band KISS stands for “Knights In Satan’s Service” (it’s actually short for “KISSing puppies is awesome!”) like Wicker Man (1973) or Two Thousand Maniacs (1964). But The Snowman is very much near the top of that list.
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The Church of Satan likes it because they don’t actually worship the Devil. (Neither does The Satanic Temple, but don’t confuse the two cause they apparently don’t like each other.) They’re more like an atheist club with candles and mood lighting, and their rules basically boil down to “don’t be a dick.” In light(bringer) of that, you can kind of see why they’d be really into The Snowman, but if you need it spelled out, the CoS already did that, writing: “The Snowman bears a valuable lesson in mortality which can teach children how precious life is, since it is limited and thus not to be wasted. Satanists do not believe in any sort of afterlife, considering our lives to be treasures not to be squandered.”
As a side note, the Church of Satan also recommends Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), which weirdly seems to go against their beliefs since, judging by that cursed boat scene, Willy Wonka is the literal Satan.
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Top Image: TVC London
