During past Decembers, it was never out of the blue for my dad to randomly call the family together and announce that we’d be watching his favorite Christmas movie: Polar Express, the movie of many Tom Hankses. One year, my city’s local theatre venue put on a live screening of the film for only a few dollars a person. Dad made sure that we were all awake on a cold Saturday morning, ready to shuffle between old velvet seats with bags of popcorn.

I’m sure many people can relate to the incessant presence Polar Express has had in my life. Back when I was too young to receive communion, I would bounce with excitement as my family and I freezed in the long line at Blackberry Farm, warming our hands with watered down hot cocoa as we waited to ride the farm’s train. Normally known for rides in mild weather, December transformed the train into our very own Polar Express.

Random things about the movie have been seared into my mind, from the incredibly annoying yellow pajama kid with the nasally voice, to the strange acrobatic elves, to the incredibly catchy “hot chocolate” song. During the first few minutes of my high school health class, one of my classmates and I would entertain ourselves by singing the iconic “Christmas Comes to Town” song.

Similar to how I’ll never stop quoting Elf or any of the Shrek movies, Polar Express has been a constant throughout my life.

But no matter how much I enjoyed drinking hot chocolate, riding snowy trains, and belting out the soundtrack, I can’t deny the fact that this movie gave me the creeps.

My reservations about this movie were recently affirmed when my sister told me how her boyfriend had found Polar Express terrifying as a kid. Her words immediately brought me back to when I was eight, watching the mysterious man who sits on the top of the train brewing questionably thick coffee over an open fire. Regrettably named Hobo, this man always terrified me the most, along with the gruesome-looking elves.

While the movie’s unique animation style makes most of the characters look dead inside even when they’re at their most expressive, there was something about Hobo that unsettled little me. Maybe it was the way his whiskery face twisted into a sneer when he talked to Hero Boy. Maybe it was his gravelly, chilling voice, which sounded nothing like Santa’s warm tone or the conductor’s demanding tenor.

No, it’s not any of those. It’s the puppets.

For those of you fortunate enough to not have watched this scene, about halfway through the film, Hero Boy, Hero Girl, and the Conductor walk through a dark train car filled with neglected toys as they journey towards the front of the train. The broken, haunted faces of the toys was enough to upset me, but what really made me avoid this scene for years was the Ebeneezer Scrooge puppet that drops in front of Hero Boy. With its pointed face and gangly limbs, the puppet screams at the boy in the same raspy voice of the Hobo, calling the Hero Boy a doubter, just like Scrooge is.

Understandably, Hero Boy is freaked out and screams, not knowing that the puppet is being controlled by the same ghostly man that has swooped to his rescue more than once.

Now that I’m older, I can look back at this chilling scene and understand that the puppet represented Hero Boy’s doubts about Santa, encouraging him to overcome his uncertainty and believe.

But eight-year-old me hadn’t learned about rhetorical analysis yet, so instead, I ran out of the room whenever that scene came on.

It’s interesting that the Hobo, a character who often ruffles audience’s feathers with his greasy grin, crass attitude, and penchant for scaring kids, is portrayed as not only a spiritual figure, but also one that’s filled with Christmas spirit. While other characters use gentler ways to challenge Hero Boy’s skepticism, Hobo calls it out straight to his face, not trying to sugarcoat his criticism in order to make the realization more comfortable for the young child. He forces Hero Boy to step outside his comfort zone, whether that’s by walking down the top of a speeding train or staring face-to-face with the puppet version of his cynicism.

Maybe I found him so scary because facing the truth can be scary. Accepting uncertainty in order to believe in something unknown is terrifying. We don’t know if believing in something we can’t see is gonna hurt us in the end or if taking this risk will open doors we never knew existed.

I for one have benefited from being pushed into uncertainty, to being forced to sit with the doubts and “what if’s” that often flood my mind. So maybe Hobo was onto something. I wouldn’t call making kids navigate a moving train or scaring the living daylights out of them via puppets proper encouragement, but sometimes, we need to be uncomfortable in order to move forward.

Liana Hirner

Liana Hirner graduated from Calvin in 2024 with a bachelor’s in writing. She currently lives in her hometown of Aurora, Illinois and works full-time in a warehouse filled with books waiting to be sorted. Writing is her first love, followed swiftly by lattes and dark chocolate.