What a delight this is... Wonderfully silly, very nicely animated, and just a pleasure during the holidays.

As usual for an Aardman production, this dialogue-free treat is filled with creative delights, gorgeous stop-motion animation, and oodles of delightful details.

[The film] isn't breaking any new ground here, but the level of sophistication of its humor can be disarming, deftly balancing slapstick and sight gags with clever deep cuts.

It's Christmas Eve and all was still - except, well it wasn't. The flock wanted bigger stockings and so the enthusiastic young "Timmy" has snuck out to procure some. Needless to say, these best laid plans don't quite work and so "Shaun" has to find a way of repatriating their lost sheep. Fortunately, the rather hapless farmer is going into town to try his hand at selling lemonade and so the germ of plan is devised that sees them rally round to rescue their pal before "Timmy" is, quite literally, presented gift-wrapped. Naturally, all of this has to be meticulously planned as their guardian sheep-dog "Bitzer" won't be playing along if he catches on. This is good fun, this, with plenty of silly antics in the snow, some exploding soft drinks and even them managing to interfere - in the friendliest possible way - with the work of Santa himself. The lack of dialogue allows the jolly score from Tom Howe to keep the pace rollicking along and the amiable and detailed stop-motion animation, especially of their facial expressions, all contribute enjoyably to a winter's tale that exudes all of the joys of Christmas, as well as it's hassles, and yes - of course there are gadgets.