From 1959, Christmas morning at the home of Disney legend Ward Kimball along with his family—wife Betty and children Kelly, John and Chloe. Click on the image for a bigger version. And stay tuned to Cartoon Brew in 2009 to find out about the big Kimball news!

Check out this rare collection of holiday cards by Disney legend Ollie Johnston from the 1980s and ’90s. They’re from the collection of Pete Emslie.

Chris Diaz led me to the YouTube link (embed below) for that Krazy Kat stop motion that I mentioned in this post last month.

I could do without the narration, but the models, settings and animation are perfect. It was directed by Derek Mogford and produced by Spitting Image Productions for King Features 1n 1996.

I’m currently visiting Chicago for a few days so it seems appropriate to share the animated short Chicago For A Few Days by Brooklyn-based artist Ray Ray Mitrano. The film, which documents Mitrano’s train trip to Chicago, was made by arranging paper and found objects onto a scanner bed. It’s an unconventional piece of animation and the narration helps make it truly special.

Here’s a delightful Christmas gift to all our readers whose stockings went bare…

Kerry Cisneroz and Dom Giansante are lifelong H-B fanatics and have created a pool on flickr all to do with Hanna Barbera. The mission is to show as much of their collections as possible, highlight obscure characters, showcase art they have done and ask that contributors do the same. It’s a treasure trove of great pics and thanks to contributors, they’ve unearthed a lot of great paraphenalia. Dig in and enjoy!

How else could we end this but with an excerpt from A Charlie Brown Christmas, the greatest piece of holiday animation ever created, directed by the estimable Bill Melendez.

Sally Cruickshank (Quasi at the Quackadero) explains the genesis of this Christmas greeting on her blog. She created the animation in one week because, she writes, “Flash is so nifty for animating. A week! And mostly I was doing other things during that week!”