In our latest edition of Thomasville Scene, our Sports Editor Will Huff and I listed our top 5 Christmas movies. Regrettably, I left one out. I’m not sure how I forgot this movie, possibly because the actions that followed the movie were so cringe-worthy that I purposely chose to ignore it.

A Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM) The Ultimate Christmas Present premiered in 2000 and followed Allie Thompson and her best friend Samantha Kwan.

The duo is walking home from school when they see an older man throw away a blinking machine resembling a robot. Allie fishes out the garbage robot and takes it home with her.

It turns out the older man was Santa Claus and he was tinkering around with a weather machine, trying to provide California with some snow.

Allie and Samantha soon learn of the weather machine’s powers and use it to their advantage to get out of school.

However, things turn messy when the weather machine goes haywire causing an unprecedented snowstorm. They only continue to decline when a crazed weatherman is determined to find out where the snow is coming from and won’t stop until he has the weather machine in his possession.

Most kids would enjoy the movie and probably move on, forgetting about it after the Christmas season. But, I wasn’t like most kids.

My cousin Jenny and I watched the movie over and over.

Eventually, we were convinced that the movie could be us.

Behind our house was a dense tree line. However, the house that backed up to the tree line had a workshop. A workshop with tools just like in the movie. Not only that, but the man working in the workshop had a white beard.

We just knew it was Santa undercover, trying to find out how to give Albany, Georgia some snow.

When the man went inside, we decided to get things that looked like trash that might really be treasures.

To tell you about these “treasures” we literally took this man’s rake and shovel, convinced they could turn into something else at any time.

We hid them in the woods because we didn’t want my mom to ask questions about our treasures.

After a week, the items were useless, they were not doing anything like the machine in the Ultimate Christmas Present. We amped it up a notch and took the man’s wheelbarrow. This had to be it. Surely, this was no ordinary wheelbarrow. This rusted wheelbarrow would without a doubt turn into a transformer any time now, it just had kinks like the weather machine at first.

As Jenny and I went inside to discuss what could be going wrong with all these inventions, my dad went outside to mow the grass.

While mowing the grass, my dad got a visit from an older, white-bearded man, asking if he had any idea about a missing shovel, rake, and wheelbarrow. My dad called my mom out there, as the man explained he and his wife had seen the two of us sneaking through the woods to take these objects.

My mom was furious and called us out there to explain.

Not one of them could keep a straight face as we explained we were sorry and thought he was Santa and in his summer house.

My parents made Jenny and I carry his items back over to the house and write an apology note.

I haven’t watched the movie since then. I’m too embarrassed at how gullible I was, believing Santa lived right behind me and was inventing new toys that resembled everyday objects.

While I haven’t watched it due to that, it is a must-watch for any kid at Christmas. Just don’t let them watch it too many times, or TPD will be showing up with a warrant for theft of property.