The new Christmas animated feature, which is currently streaming on Netflix, comes from the mind of Richard Curtis, the creator of the holiday classic Love. That Christmas just released on Netflix last Saturday based on Curtis’ series of children’s books. 

The film stars Brian Cox as Santa Claus, alongside Fiona Shaw, Rhys Darby, Jodie Whittaker, and Bill Nighy. Simon Otto, known for his work on the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy, directed the movie. 

The feature centers around the made-up town of Wellington-on-Sea that gets caught in a blizzard, making things very difficult for its townspeople and Santa during the holiday season.

Curtis spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about how working on this film differed from past projects. He stated, “It was lovely writing a film about children and families. I think in my career, I have tended to sometimes take a long time to catch up. I was still writing falling in love films when I’d already been with my wife for 10 years.” He continued, “And this is me at last catching up with the fact that children have been a main element of my life for the last 20 years.”

When asked by The Hollywood Reporter what the accomplished director liked to watch during the holiday season, he responded, “Over the last decade, there has been a bit of a tendency in England to show multi-murder shows on Christmas Day. There’s a lot of Miss Marple and stuff like that. And I sit down with the family to watch things, and we think, ‘Oh, this is a bit grim. Oh, our favorite parent has just been murdered.’ So I’m glad to be part of a merry, rather than a murderous Christmas” with That Christmas.

Curtis says that Love Actually has a small cameo in That Christmas as one of the characters complains about having to watch the same movie every Christmas. He was in for a surprise when he first saw the movie since no one ran the joke by him, but he was very pleased with it.