Seasons Beatings

Christmas classics are not born but made, growing in stature with each passing season. The computer-animated Santa vs. the Snowman may not be destined for the legendary status achieved by its cartoon colleagues Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer or A Charlie Brown Christmas, but its ranking on the pop-culture landscape increased dramatically once it departed the television screen for the much larger pastures of the OMNIMAX theater. Santa vs. the Snowman tips its hat to its Rankin-Bass predecessors with contemporary gags, but it also delivers a knock-down, drag-out battle royal filled with elfin armies, legions of snowpeople and a 50-foot-tall toy soldier manned by St. Nick himself as a lonely snowman attempts to usurp Santa's position as the kids' favorite winter being — by any means necessary. SvtS screens at noon and 3 p.m. daily (December 20 through 30) at the Saint Louis Science Center (5050 Oakland Avenue; 314-289-4424 or www.slsc.org); please note that there is only one show on Christmas Eve (noon) and no show on Christmas Day. Tickets are $7 to $8.
Dec. 20-24; Dec. 26-30, 2007