The Spirit of Christmas is the title given to two adult stop motion animated short films created by the duo Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

A Goat sniffs on Kenny's corpse, as the boys return to their homes to find presents hidden by their parents.

In 1992, Parker and Stone created The Spirit of Christmas while attending the University of Colorado under the Avenging Conscience moniker.

Prior to this, Parker and Stone ran camera tests, during which they made impressions of children's voices, which were later used in South Park.

Near the end of the semester, Parker conceived The Spirit of Christmas after watching a series of films with Stone.

In the episode, Tweek Tweak is reluctant to complete a snowman out of fear that it will come to life and kill him, to which Stan replies, "Dude, when has that ever happened except for that one time?"

[3][4] The short film was completed by December 1995 and Graden initially distributed the video to eighty friends.

After The Spirit of Christmas became popular, Parker and Stone began to develop the characters and setting into an animated series titled South Park, and Fox was the first network they pitched the project to.

After negotiations with Stone and Parker, Fox declined the series due to one of its characters being a sentient piece of feces, which later became Mr. Hankey.

After bootleg distribution of the short made it a viral phenomenon, it caught the attention of Comedy Central, which hired the pair to develop the series.

The film also establishes recurring elements that later appear in the series, such as Cartman's antisemitism and rats consuming Kenny's corpse.