About

"Almost Christmas" Means It Wasn't Christmas is a line spoken by the character Phoenix Wright in the visual novel, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, originally released in mid-October 2001. The catchphrase and scene later became a meme among the video game's fandom and are traditionally posted annually in December, most commonly on December 24th, just before Christmas Day. Variations of the meme include fan art depictions, redraws, exploitables and more.

Origin

The game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney was first released in Japan on October 12th, 2001, for the Game Boy Advance (GBA), later receiving a North American release on the Nintendo DS on October 11th, 2005, and various other platforms over the years.

In case 1-4, titled "Turnabout Goodbyes," Phoenix Wright, while cross-examining Larry Butz, notes that the radio DJ that Larry was listening to said, "It's almost Christmas!" and concludes, "'Almost Christmas' means it wasn't Christmas!"^[3]

The clip from the video game was uploaded to YouTube^[2] on December 23rd, 2021, by user RayyanTheLad, receiving over 11,000 views, 470 likes and 50 comments in four years.

The moment from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney was notably referenced on TV Tropes^[1] on April 16th, 2007, under the "Notable Non Sequitur" entry, with the excerpt stating:

In context, Phoenix is arguing about the timeline of events in Larry's testimony; he said he heard a gunshot around the time the radio DJ he was listening to said "it's almost Christmas!", which in context of the case, means that Larry heard the gunshot while it was before midnight on Christmas Eve, while the two gunshots Lotta Hart heard happened after midnight, when it was Christmas day, meaning that that they had witnessed separate instances of a gun being fired on the same lake, poking a massive hole in the prosecution's argument that the victim must have been killed when Lotta heard the gunshots.

Spread

The phrase rose to popularity during the mid-2010s in the Ace Attorney fandom. Posting the phrase and related fan art became an annual tradition among fans of the series.

For example, on December 24th, 2018, Redditor Redth_SA posted the manga version of the moment to the /r/AceAttorney^[4] subreddit, titled "Almost Christmas means it wasn't Christmas but it's the Ace Attorney manga," garnering nearly 200 upvotes and 10 comments in seven years.

On December 25th, 2022, Tumblr^[5] user ribbonkey posted a fan art drawing, created by miki_n_atienza (Micole Atienza), of Phoenix and Trucy Wright referencing the quote, receiving numerous likes and reblogs in three years (exact number hidden).

On December 24th, 2023, X / Twitter^[6] user FrackDeals tweeted a Silver the Hedgehog variation of the meme, captioned, "today is the last day you can retweet this," garnering over 126,000 views, 6,700 likes and 2,600 retweets in two years.

Examples

External References