What if Sally discovered Christmas Town?

Dr. Finklestein rarely allows his creation to go outside his lab. She’s not ready? What more could she want? It’s safe with him?

But Sally wants freedom, she wants to be apart of the community of Halloween Town. She wants more.

She soon finds out that so does the acclaimed Pumpkin King. Even though he has everything he wants, he’s bored and restless.

So when Sally stumbles upon the mysterious woods and ends up in Christmas Town, she’s delighted. Finally, she’s having the courage to go after adventure! But Christmas Town is not as nice as it seems. Beneath the jolly lights, there’s a pervasive fear among the residents who fear getting on the naughty list. . . . And in a classic case of cultural miscommunication, Sally gets right on top of it.

Halloween, Christmas and a little romance so might as well be Valentine’s Day themed- Mancusi covers all the holidays and what we love about each of them. Each are wonderful on their own but as Sally and Jack discover, it can be nice to explore other holidays and see the good in them. It’s a break and makes you appreciate your own holiday more.

I’ll admit the beginning of Sally’s story reminded me too much of Rapunzel’s with the controlling parental figure using fear and belittlement to isolate their “child.” But that was only in the first chapter as Sally quickly strikes out on her own.

Although Sally is kind and resourceful like Rapunzel, but her story is more about claiming the confidence and capability she never had a chance to exert and encouraging others to do the same. Not that she sees these good qualities at first.

She is so into exploring Christmas Town and Mancusi’s delightful descriptions make it easy to imagine. The present shops, the dancing sugar plums, all the twinkly lights. It’s also humorous as Sally compares it to Halloween Town and has to use context clues to figure out why no one is scaring anyone and why everyone is so nice.

It’s Christmas, of course! But Christmas is under siege by the threat of Santa’s right hand man, Mr. Jingles who judges who goes on the naughty list and makes those disappear so Christmas may remain perfect. I know, it sounds like a Cold War dystopian film.

Mancusi brings up a good point that being nice is the Christmas spirit but it’s ruined if the niceness is fake, only to avoid being punished, rather than coming from the spirit. A spirit Sally unwittingly represents even though she thinks the residents are tame compared to Halloween Town.

This difference between naughty and nice also brings up the question of perfection and beauty which kinda gets into spoilery territory so I’ll segue into the other theme. Everyone can be a bit of everything. Nice, naughty, jolly, scary. Maybe being a mix makes you “imperfect” but that’s fine. By allowing all these traits mix together you can have something unique and wonderful as porcelain doll in a patchwork dress or hot chocolate with spiders.

Alright, maybe that last one is just a Halloween Town resident preference.

I enjoy how Sally cuts right to the matter. Even though this is her first adventure, she is steadfast in what she believes is right and quick on her feet, using her skills in patchwork and potions to get out of quick scrapes with Jack. As he said that even though she thought she wanted to have his bravery and confidence, she proves that she had it all along. She just needed the right situation to bring it out.

As for Pumpkin King himself. Mancusi shifts his movie personality easily to prose with his bombastic showmanship in contrast to his lonely, isolated self, looking for more. That’s what bonds them. She wanted more than Dr. Finklestein’s narrow life for her. He’s aware that he has everything but cannot deny he wants to have more than adoration of others, he wants to explore and get challenged.

That’s what they give each other. Like I said above, the romance is so well done, it could be Valentine’s Day. Sally thought she wanted to be Jack but she realizes while she admired the image he showed the world, she loves the man beyond his idolization.

His humor, his enthusiasm and big ideas, his conviction, and his loyalty to his friends. He’s the first one whose offers to help is simply to help, not control or because he misguidedly believes she’s weak. He believes her to be competent and that makes it all the more satisfying when he helps her.

They complement each other in the best ways and it makes all the better as they traverse Christmas Town’s dangerous blizzards, Nog bogs and Carol Cliffs. You can tell Mancusi delighted in bringing this creepy couple closer and in further cataloguing the Christmas Town we briefly saw in the movie.

This was simply a delightful story that emulates the characters we enjoy in a whole new way, and with the same humor. Like when Jack guesses the Valentine’s Day tree represents a holiday celebrating organ dissection and the day they eat them.

5 Jack O Lanterns. Or 5 Sugared Plums. I couldn’t decide on the Halloween or Christmas theme.