Working with one reindeer (voiced by Guz Khan) after a bout of illness, Brian Cox’s stressed Santa zooms in on the quaint English seaside town of Wellington-on-Sea. Here, he discovers children, tweens and grown-ups in a “blizzard of bother”. Hapless new kid in town Danny (Jack Wisniewski) wrestles with a blushing crush on young Sam (Zazie Hayhurst) and family crises — his parents are divorced, his mum (Jodie Whittaker) works long hours as a nurse, and his dad may not be home for Christmas. For her part, Sam struggles to temper the misbehaviour of twin Charlie (Sienna Sayer), lest Charlie ends up on Santa’s naughty list. And young Bernadette (India Brown) is tasked with taking charge of her siblings and other kids when their parents become stranded while travelling in heavy weather.

That Bernadette takes advantage of the problem to reinvent the family Christmas is typical of a film that toasts kids’ imaginations, resilience and resourcefulness. As with Love Actually, the script treats Christmas as “an emotional magnifying glass”, following multiple characters as they converge, disconnect, run riot and reunite. Where it differs from that 2003 hit is in Curtis’s abandonment of certain registers that struck sour or queasy notes. That Christmas is clearly his work — bumbling romantic Danny is just a loose fringe and a few birthdays away from a 1990s Hugh Grant — but its gentle generosity is in tune with the kids at its heart.

Quaint as the town is, too, Curtis, Souter and first-time director Simon Otto (head of character animation on the How to Train Your Dragon films) take care to make it at least a little multicultural and modern. Themes of childhood mental health issues and climate anxiety are lightly incorporated. The film opens with Sam and mixed-race director Bernadette’s play, a progressive take on festive fare that ends in chaos but proves a nifty way of introducing the film’s characters. An appealing voice cast helps make these characters pop, with Whittaker and Wisniewski establishing an endearing mother-son chemistry. Fiona Shaw adds nuanced support as Ms Trapper, a stern teacher whose cautious bond with Danny over his struggles to build a snowman leads to some nicely developed twists.

These pay-offs are typical of the film’s inventiveness, at its best. The humour can be soft and broad — one gag involves a whoopee cushion. But clever, playful ideas elsewhere range from the use of Post-It notes as a communication device to some Aardman-esque business involving a hungry fox and a rafter of runaway turkeys. The travails of adults stuck in a camper van amid snowfall is more contrived, though it proves an effective way of freeing up their kids to — in a nicely self-aware gag — not watch that “lovely old Christmas film” their parents cue up every year. Guess which one.

The results earn plenty of goodwill, despite the predictable inclusion of Coldplay and Ed Sheeran songs. Superior musical work is served by composer John Powell, who follows Otto from the How to Train Your Dragon films with a twirling score that matches the film nicely: spry, breezy and poignant, both charm and disarm in roughly equal measure.