This is a Christmas special with a big heart, and some excellent performances by the Vienna Boy's choir.
The animation is somewhere between Average-Rankin-Bass and Terribly-Proportioned-Children-Beating-Drums. The main flaw with this one is that it tried a bit too hard for the drama ( and it's a little hard to be dramatic when a sheep randomly gets run over by a chariot and you fall over laughing ). Other than that, this is a special worth looking at. Not a classic, I'm afraid, but nice all the same.