I was awakened on Sunday morning by a girl in pajamas standing next to my bed, asking how she could watch “Olive, the Other Reindeer.”
Oh.
The kids eagerly look at the advent calendar each morning to see what the activity for that day is, but I hadn’t thought to mention that most activities won’t be things that they can do by themselves immediately after waking up. I told Magen that we would have a pajama party in the evening and watch the movie together as a family.
None of us had ever seen the movie, but Magen’s first-grade teacher had read the book to her class last year, so she already knew the story. The movie was cute, but it isn’t one I’ll need to watch every year. The kids, however, loved it and watched it at least once a day for the next several days. It was definitely worth the two bucks I spent to borrow/rent it from the library.
Besides the fact that the voice of Olive the dog was provided by Drew Barrymore, the best part of the movie was when Santa and his reindeer delivered presents in cities around the world — London, Sydney, Rome, Paris, Tokyo — and gave the Pope a Phillies hat!
Here are a few screen captures:
After landing on the roof of the Sydney Opera House, they make their way over to Italy.
The Pope looks at the hat…
… and he likes it!
He even takes off his papal tiara (thank you, Wikipedia) and wears it!
I couldn’t find anything online that indicated whose idea it was to give the Pope a Philadelphia Phillies baseball cap. The author? Illustrator? Screen writer? Director? Somebody involved in the process must be a Phillies fan.
If you have kids and you haven’t seen the movie, it’s worth 45 minutes of your time — especially if you’re a Phillies fan.
Hi! I'm Rachel, and I'm so glad you're here. I make creative projects and intentional choices to create a life I love -- and I hope to inspire you to do the same! 
I love this TV special. Don’t you think that the “Phillies hat” conveniently sports the single letter “P” – as in Pope?
Jay: You’re right! I never thought of that.
Being a Red Sox fan, I never thought of it as a Phillies hat! Maybe we are both correct!
Rachel – This movie debuted in 1999, the year I met my husband…..and the character of Olive was adopted by Nordstrom (where we were both working when we met!) as their Christmas theme for that year……..so we have been “Olive” fans for some time now!
Anyway…..as it is now only the end of September, and our kids have already decided that they MUST begin watching holiday specials, we have been treated to several showings of “Olive” recently…….and every time we see it, we always say the same thing: “The Pope gets a Phillies hat!” (Of course, we also always remind ourselves that maybe the “P” does just stand for “Pope”) but it seems a little weird, right? That P doesn’t look like any old P – it looks EXACTLY like the P of the Philadelphia Phillies (a logo we know very well – we are from Philadelphia!)
I have scoured the web trying to find evidence of this……and while I can’t come up with anything that definitely confirms that it IS a Phillies hat, I have hit on numerous other sites where people have said that that was their first reaction, too – just like you did when you first saw the movie! Funny, right? I just thought I’d share…….
Hey Alesha! Thanks for the note. We’re big Phillies fans too, so we’d recognize the Phillies P anywhere!