Randy Travis voices the adult Billy, the narrator, who as a child can't speak. In 2013, Travis suffered a stroke and was unable to speak, and was just barely able to communicate until 2016.
Upon the films release in Tennessee (the movie's setting) elementary students were given a special showing of the film along with a blow-up set of Annabelle's antlers and a visit from Santa.
This is the second Christmas movie that Cloris Leachman (Aunt Agnes) and Jim Varney (Mr. Gus Holder) have been in; the first one with Leachman being Prancer (1989) as Mrs. McFarland and the first one with Varney being Ernest Saves Christmas (1988) as Ernest P. Worrell.