Director: Cory Morrison
A small elfling with a big imagination sets out to save Christmas in Glisten and the Merry Mission, a 2023 animated adventure built for family movie nights.
What is Glisten and the Merry Mission about?
Marzipan lives in a hidden corner of the North Pole where wonder is supposed to be automatic, yet she cannot shake the sense that something essential has gone missing this year. Alongside her mother Cinnameg, she sets off to track down Glisten, an enchanted snow deer whose presence keeps the holiday magic running. The search pulls the pair through frozen forests and half-forgotten workshops, testing Marzipan's patience and her willingness to trust things she cannot fully explain. Rather than leaning on spectacle alone, the film frames its stakes around a child learning to believe in effort as much as in magic, using the hunt for Glisten as a way to talk about resilience without spelling the lesson out too plainly.
Cast & crew
The voice cast blends music and screen names, with singer-songwriters Leona Lewis and Julia Michaels joining veteran performers Chevy Chase, Freddie Prinze Jr., Michael Rapaport, Dionne Warwick, and Billy Ray Cyrus. Young actress Trinity Bliss gives Marzipan her voice, anchoring the film's emotional throughline. Director Cory Morrison keeps the ensemble's energy light and holiday-appropriate throughout the 78-minute runtime.
Context & significance
Produced in the United States, Glisten and the Merry Mission arrived in 2023 as part of a wave of original animated holiday features aimed squarely at younger viewers and the families watching alongside them. Its scale is modest by studio-blockbuster standards, but that keeps the pacing tight and the story easy for kids to follow from start to finish.
Where & how to watch
Glisten and the Merry Mission is available with a Persian-language dub on K-Time, making it an easy pick for family viewing in Farsi. The film page here is free to browse; watching it requires only a quick K-Time account login, with no extra steps or platform-hopping involved. K-Time's interface is built around Farsi speakers, from menus to search, so settling in for the film feels native rather than translated.