Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Special takes place some time after Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. The group of familiar friends are preparing for a Christmas celebration. Manny the mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano) is excited about displaying a boulder which has a part of his family's Christmas for years. However, Sid the sloth (voiced by John Leguizamo) find the rock to be boring and wants to start a new tradition. A debate ensues about Christmas decorations and how Santa Claus views behavior. Manny tells Sid that he's been "naughty" and therefore won't get any presents. He then tells his wife Ellie the mammoth (voiced by Queen Latifah) that he made the whole thing up. However, Sid takes it seriously and decides to set off for the North Pole in order to set things straight with Santa. Joining him are Manny and Ellie's daughter, Peaches (voiced by Ciara Bravo), and the possums (?) Crash (voiced by Seann William Scott) and Eddie (voiced by Josh Peck). Along the way, they meet a flying reindeer named Prancer (voiced by T.J. Miller). When Manny realizes that Peaches and Sid are missing, he enlists Diego the sabre-toothed tiger (voiced by Denis Leary) to help track them. When everyone arrives at the North Pole, they are in for a big surprise.

Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Special is an odd combination of creativity and things which make no sense whatsoever. Let's go ahead and start with the latter. There are plenty of Christmas specials -- actually the majority of them -- which are more about the holiday celebration than the Christian significance of the event. This sort of secular approach isn't unique or surprising, and those which do address it, usually do so in a very symbolic way. However, Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Special is the only special that I can think of that literally can't be about Jesus, because the story is taking place before his birth. The makes the idea of a "Christmas" special ludicrous. How do you celebrate something which hasn't happened yet? Then we have the inclusion of Santa Claus, whose historical inspiration didn't appear until the 4th century. It's as if the makers of this special decided that logic was in no way important and decided to throw in every holiday icon and tradition.

Those issues aside, Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Special does have some clever ideas. Despite being about Christmas and the fact that it features Santa Claus, this show decides that none of the well-known Christmas traditions and symbols exist, and the characters then go about inadvertently inventing them. So, it is interesting to see the Christmas tree, mistletoe, and Santa's elves come into being in an organic way here. Even when these notions are telegraphed, which is most of the time, it's still cute.

As with any spin-off featuring well-known characters, your enjoyment of Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Special is probably going to depend on how much you like the characters to begin with. Other than Scrat (voiced by Chris Wedge), I've not been impressed with the Ice Age movies, as I really don't find the characters appealing. (Let's face it, the mammoths aren't cute.) And while I still didn't like them here, I was won over by the ideas concerning Christmas traditions, despite the quasi time travel notions happening here. Speaking of Scrat, he does appear here and his ice skating routine was awesome.

Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Special was really reaching with the whole boulder thing on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The show has been letterboxed at 1.78:1 and the Disc carries an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 30 Mbps. The image is very sharp and clear, showing no grain and no defects from the source material. This must be a digital-to-digital transfer, as it looks nearly flawless. The colors look great and the image is never overly dark or bright. The level of detail is good and there is a nice depth to the image. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 4.0 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. For a (presumably TV) special, the audio is pretty good. The stereo effects are nicely done, as they are detailed and illustrate off-screen sounds. The surround sound effects are used to bring wind to life in a nice way. Manny's movements are amplified by the subwoofer.

The lone extra on the Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Special Blu-ray Disc (aside from a preview for the next Ice Age movie) is the MUSIC VIDEO for the song "Swingin' Jingle Bells".