Made for television from the Dylan Thomas classic, the film concerns a traditional Christmas in Wales around the turn of the 20th century (probably late Edwardian era), told by a grandfather to his grandson in flashbacks as a story in a more modern day setting. Adapted from poem by the same name by Dylan Thomas (1914 – 1953), the movie has been aired on PBS.

The story is an anecdotal retelling of a Christmas from the view of a young child and is a romanticised version of Christmases past, portraying a nostalgic and simpler time. It is one of Thomas’s most popular works. Filmed on location in Montgomery, Wales and includes some older Welsh carols like “On To Bethlehem Town” and “All Through the Night,” this is a sweet, funny period film that is suitable for the whole whole family and has become a Christmas tradition to many.

It’s a faithful yet playful adaptation of Thomas’ work, a narrative poem conceived as a radio play, and the film is at once appropriately sentimental about Christmases past and tartly realistic about the Christmas depicted in the film’s present. It stands in contrast to so much Christmas entertainment that is either gloppy or pious; Elliott, as both narrator and lead actor, provides a vinegary crispness to the role of nostalgic grandfather. – Entertainment Weekly

“Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and it snowed. But here a small boy says: “It snowed last year, too. I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.” – A Child’s Christmas in Wales

“For dinner we had turkey and blazing pudding, and after dinner the Uncles sat in front of the fire, loosened all buttons, put their large moist hands over their watch chains, groaned a little and slept. Mothers, aunts and sisters scuttled to and fro, bearing tureens.” – A Child’s Christmas in Wales

Starring Denholm Elliott, Mathonwy Reeves.