Dr. Robotnik has captured Santa Claus and taken over his job, posing as Robotnik Claus. Robotnik Claus' plan is to have everyone on Mobius give him presents. It's up to Sonic to rescue the real Santa Claus, take back all the stolen presents, and deliver them to all the good people of Mobius.
This special provides examples of:
- Bad Santa: Robotnik tries to take over the holiday as Robotnik Claus and force everyone to give him presents.
- Bear Trap: At the North Pole, Scratch and Grounder set one up to catch Sonic as he snowboards down Calamity Cliffs. Sonic splashes them with snow, causing them to set off the trap.
- Bland-Name Product: The department store that Robotnik Claus makes a personal appearance in is called Stacey's.
- Chekhov's Gun: Sonic reveals to Tails that Sally got him a ring with a squiggle on it last Christmas. In the special's third act, Santa discovers the ring, and reveals that whoever wears it can unlock the power of Ultimate Velocity, super speed unlike any other.
- Christmas Special: This special serves as one to Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
- Comedic Sociopathy: As Robotnik looks over his pile of stolen Christmas presents before Sonic takes them back, he says that happiness is always so much more enjoyable when it's based on the misery of millions.
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: When Sonic takes back all the presents that Robotnik Claus stole, he also strips Robotnik of his Santa Claus outfit, leaving him wearing only white boxer shorts with pink hearts.
- Crossover: While this special is mostly based on Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, it does feature a few elements from Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), namely Princess Sally Acorn and the SWAT-bots.
- Demoted to Extra: In an example of a character from SatAM appearing in a special pertaining to a different series, Princess Sally makes an appearance in this special. However, she gets absolutely no speaking lines, and plays very little role in the plot. Also, her "voice" (read: gasps and groans) is provided by Tabitha St. Germain instead of Kath Soucie, due to the latter being busy with Space Jam at the time.
- Grand Finale: This is the final episode to the series and ends with Santa Claus giving the mantle to Sonic.
- Losing Your Head: Happens to Scratch and Grounder after Sonic destroys them with their own magnetic crane arm, then later when Sonic, disguised as a garbage man, destroys them a second time by pushing a cart with a garbage can at them.
- Mall Santa: As part of his Robotnik Claus persona, Robotnik makes personal appearances at the Stacey's department store. Instead of asking children what they want for Christmas, he asks them what they want to give him. One little boy does not take this well and calls him out on this, which leads to Robotnik calling for Grounder to take him to his dungeon.
- Mythology Gag:
- While showing off the ring that Sally got him last Christmas, Sonic meets a little bird, possibly meant to represent a Flicky, a species of bird that escapes from the robots when Sonic defeats them in the games, which are prominently featured in Sonic 3D Blast.
- The green robot that Robotnik talks to in two scenes resembles both Heavy from Knuckles Chaotix and Humpty from Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine.
- Sonic's first challenge to unlock the power of ultimate velocity is to snowboard down a mountain, which his video game counterpart does at the beginning of Ice Cap Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
- Sonic's second challenge is to ride a hang glider, which his video game counterpart does in Sky High Zone in the Master System and Game Gear versions of Sonic 2.
- Sonic's last line in the special is "The kids' rank; an X-Tremely Merry Christmas, every year of your life!", a reference to how this special was originally planned to be called An X-tremely Sonic Christmas to tie in with Sonic X-treme, a game planned for release on the Sega Saturn around the 1996 holiday season. However, since the game was delayed and later cancelled the following year, the special was renamed Sonic Christmas Blast to tie in with Sonic 3D Blast.
- Passing the Torch: At the end of the special, Santa Claus decides to take the advice of his robotic duplicate and retire, giving the job of delivering Christmas presents to Sonic.
- Robot Me: Robotnik invents a robotic duplicate of Santa Claus to trick the citizens of Mobius into thinking that Santa is going to retire and have Robotnik take his place.
- Saving Christmas: Sonic and Tails race to the North Pole to save Santa and Christmas from Robotnik, who had kidnapped the jolly old elf and had convinced Mobius to give him presents.
- Special Edition Title: This special features a modified version of Adventures' title sequence, with a festive version of the theme song playing, and scenes from the special implemented into it.
- Subbing for Santa: Both Sonic and Robotnik pull this off. First, Robotnik forcing the kids to give him toys and Sonic rescuing, then being promoted to, the Santa of Mobius!
- Under the Mistletoe: Sonic kisses Sally under the mistletoe after he gives her the presents he took back from Robotnik Claus.
- Usurping Santa: Dr. Robotnik hatches an evil plan to steal Santa Claus' spot as Father Christmas and steal all the toys for himself.
- The Voiceless: Except for an audible gasp provided by Tabitha St. Germain, Sally never actually has any dialogue in this special. A brief cut right after Sonic speaks with Sally at the beginning suggests that dialogue for her was already scripted and even animated, but was cut out because Kath Soucie (who had voiced the character on Sonic SatAM) was unable to reprise the role due to her contractual obligation of voicing Lola Bunny in Space Jam.
