A Christmas Story (comic story)

A Christmas Story was the first Christmas story set in the Doctor Who universe. It first appeared in the 1965 Christmas season. It would later be one of the few TV Comic stories reprinted in Doctor Who Classic Comics and was even the subject of the cover to the issue in which it appeared.

Summary
The First Doctor, John and Gillian visit the planet to which Santa Claus has moved his workshop from the North Pole, where it was apparently "very noisy... all those aircraft and things", as Santa himself explains. They find that Santa's toy production is way behind, due to his having received many letters from children wanting a model TARDIS for Christmas, as well having been hampered by an impish being calling himself, variously, the Demon Magician and the "Magician of the Forest". Having seen a demonstration of the Doctor's "magic box", one of the functions of which is a toy duplicator, Santa asks the Doctor to help make the TARDIS models (which are never seen, only mentioned) and ward off the Demon Magician in order to save Christmas for the children of the world. The three time travellers eventually thwart the Demon Magician with the help of the Doctor's "magic box". After they send the creature into space, far away from Santa's workshop, they decide to leave in the TARDIS. In gratitude, Santa lights up the sky with a huge message whilst on his rounds: HAPPY JOURNEY TO TARDIS.

Characters

 * First Doctor
 * John and Gillian
 * Santa Claus
 * Demon Magician

Continuity

 * The Second Doctor meets Santa Claus again and mentions this adventure in ST: The Man Who (Nearly) Killed Christmas.
 * The Doctor's "magic box" shares some of the technology seen much later in the Master's Tissue Compression Eliminator. It's shown to shrink a polar bear here.  However, unlike the TCE, it doesn't kill its subjects; it just makes them smaller. Also unlike the TCE, it could be used to enlarge its subjects, such as a squirrel which helps the Doctor climb a wall.

Timeline

 * A Christmas Story occurs after TVC: Shark Bait
 * A Christmas Story occurs before TVC: The Didus Expedition