According to the book Maria got me for christmas, you don't make mouths for every letter of the alphabet, you make them to cover the word phonetically. That makes sense! It's also far fewer mouths to make. The hands don't need to be too crazy either. He only needs to hold a bag, open envelopes (which in the Rankin Bass special, the envelopes sort of "fall open") and maybe give vague gestures. I'm going to use the old muppet trick of having one hand pose per camera shot. That way I'm not screwing around trying to make tiny clay fingers move and stay consistent. We'll see how it works... or if it works...
