When I first saw The Nightmare Before Christmas it was around during December when most series on free-to-air TV in Australia start to end for the year and take a break until near the end of January the next year. During this time most of the movies are Christmas themed but The Nightmare Before Christmas didn't seem like that at first.
About Halloween:
- Movie starts out and is generally set in Halloween Town with its dark scary look
- After learning about Christmas, Jack tries his take on it with some scary looking presents
- Santa was called Sandy Claws
- Lock, Shock and Barrel had some very violent ideas of dealing with Sandy Claws
About Christmas:
- Jack was bored doing Halloween and after discovering it, wanted to do Christmas and most of the movie was Jack learning, preparing and doing Christmas
- Jack tries very much to explain Christmas to the residents of Halloween Town in which everything isn't all fights and scares
- from Jack's perspective his presents weren't bad but rather he focused on the nice box rather than the item inside like in the Town Hall Song he says the point is not to know what's in it and dismisses their guessing (in a way reinforced in the second chapter of Halloween Town in Kingdom Hearts 2 where Jack laments on the ruined boxes while he stepped on a toy that fad fallen out ignoring it)
- The Movie's climax was very much about saving Christmas much like most Christmas Movies
So I am wondering, was The Nightmare Before Christmas meant to be a Halloween or Christmas Movie?