Celebrate the Holidays With Your Favorite TV Shows
Sometimes, a good holiday episode from your favorite TV show is better than a full-fledged movie—and it's a lot more tailored to you anyway, because if you're a fan of Cheers, then you're probably going to be down for the Christmas special, too. So we went and tried to pick a few across the board. Not a fan of the holidays? Got you covered. More inclined to celebrate the meaning of the holiday season without all the decorations? Maybe give Lost's holiday-adjacent episode a shot. What we're saying is that no one has to feel left out of the cold, shiny season if they don't want to. Here are the best Christmas episodes ever.
Happy Endings never got its due, and if any episode really points that out, it’s “No Ho Ho.” After it comes out that Jane has been hiding the fact that her birthday is on Christmas, her friends do their best to organize a no-Christmas birthday celebration for her—but the festive-nature of the season proves to be quite the obstacle.
On the opposite side of things, It's Always Sunny has a way of pointing out just how terrible humanity can be... in a funny, charming way? But for the sixth season finale, the gang finds themselves trying to rediscover the meaning of Christmas. Granted there's also naked elves and blood and some other un-holiday-like elements, but it's also It's Always Sunny, so take what you can get.
Nothing captures the real rush of Christmas like the sixth season of Cheers. As Rebecca makes everyone work late at the bar, Sam rushes out to find Rebecca a gift after discovering that everyone else has one for her. Oh, and you get Norm in a Santa suit with all his Santa friends. It's a solid installment of one of the best sitcoms in history.
In a departure from the holiday norm, Lost's "The Constant" follows Desmond as he flashes back and forth between the past and the present. The key to surviving it is finding his "constant," someone that he cares about that exists in both the past and the present. He goes back in time and asks his estranged girlfriend to be by her phone on Christmas Eve, eight years later. What results is one of Lost's most poignant and heartfelt moments and an accidental Christmas episode that highlights what the season really is about.
To be fair, deciding which of the holiday episodes of The O.C. is the best is an impossible choice, but if you must, you should choose the one that started it all. To the delight of all girls and goys, Seth Cohen introduced the world to Chrismukkah—or at least made it official. The celebration of both Christmas and Hanukkah inspired all kinds of celebrations and reminded us just how great Seth's character could be.
Choosing just one episode of The Office is a tough feat, but "Christmas Party" from Season Two is the messy, sometimes-problematic choice that we all should turn to during the holiday season. When a game of Dirty Santa goes wrong after Michael overshoots the price limit (by a long shot), everything goes downhill when a pair of oven mitts fails to please the boss. Several shots later, and there's flashing and cameras, and... it's a lot.
When Leslie is put on a two-week suspension from her job, she still tries to sneak in and do some work. But more importantly, the crew around her comes together to help put together a special Christmas gift for their leader. What results is the best gingerbread city hall that a Deputy Director could ever ask for.
Is Orange is the New Black firmly off the rails at this point? Sure. The one-time comedy juggernaut has crashed a bit since its heyday, but if you want one episode that truly highlights the series at its best, go back to "Can't Fix Crazy." The season one finale also acts as its own screwed up Christmas special that results in Piper beating the daylights out of a Jesus-driven meth addict to the tune of "Silent Night." It's a journey.
Surprisingly not titled "Festivus," the 10th episode of Seinfeld's 9th season, actually called "The Strike," gave the show's fans a few of its most eternal moments. Yes, in this episode we learn Kramer's been on strike from H&H Bagels all of these years, but the real star of the show is the holiday Costanza's dad made up in his childhood. Festivus swaps a Christmas tree for an aluminum pole, features an "Airing of Grievances" at the dinner table, and ends with a wrestling match aptly named "The Feats of Strength." December 23 will never be the same. —Ben Boskovich
Even Black Mirror likes to get in the holiday spirit. In what has become one of its most lauded episodes to date, Jon Hamm and Rafe Spall star in the second season finale of the British anthology series about two men who wake up in a cabin and share stories about their lives. It may sound mundane but the twist endings, like most Black Mirror episodes, is what makes it so incredible. It's also the only holiday special the series has attempted to date.
Honestly, Community is a bit of a fever dream all on its own, but when the series leaned into that fully and got lost in the mind of its most complex character, Abed, the stop-motion animation episode of the series became one of its best. Mixing in the fast-wit comedy the show is known for with an empathetic story about why Abed suddenly shifts his world into stop-motion animation, the Abed-centric episode shines a bittersweet light on what Christmas is for a lot of people.
There's no plot point. No big message. Just two really lovely people gathered around some biscuits, free of soggy-bottoms, enjoying the best part of the holiday season: dessert. Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry reprise their roles at the top of the cooking pyramid to share some of their holiday recipes, free from the strains of baking competitions soundtracked to semi-dramatic piano music. It's positively delightful.
If you've never heard "a Macababy's gotta do what a Macababy's gotta do," then you have some work to do. Rugrats doesn't get the credit that its due when it comes to seamlessly passing on the stories of Judaism that it did (see the Passover special, which also crushes it), but the Hanukah special is a particularly spot-on masterclass of how children's television can tell a story in a way that broadens a kid's perspective. Plus Tommy Pickles knows his way around ancient history.
Car crashes. Special episodes. Spending Christmas with your mother. They're all things to be especially wary of, but of 30 Rock's five holiday episodes, "Christmas Special" manages to tie all three in together to create the best of all those worlds. When Jack is stuck in New York with his mother for the holiday, he forces everyone at TGS to put together a holiday episode. Meanwhile, after Liz's parents ditch her for the holiday, she decides to volunteer for a local charity.
After discovering that his card was in the pocket of a homeless man who died, Toby dedicates himself to making sure the man gets a proper burial. The man got the coat after Toby donated it to Goodwill, but when Toby dives in to find his next of kin, all he can find is another brother who is also homeless. Eventually, he's able to give the man, a Korean War veteran, a full military burial in Arlington.
For a show that's been on fifteen seasons, there's not a wealth of holiday episodes for Grey's Anatomy, but its second season entry into the genre is a strong one. The doctors at Seattle Grace are split hard on whether or not to celebrate the holiday, and when Cristina dismisses her boyfriend, Preston's love of celebrating the holiday, the question of faith and the importance of it comes up. It matches perfectly with a little boy who refuses to believe in Santa or the worth of the heart that he's supposed to get from a transplant donor.
If you like music but are also kind of cynical about musicals, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend might be for you. Their installment into the holiday canon finds Rebecca's mom, played by Tovah Feldshuh, visiting for a California Christmas that doesn't feel like the Christmas she knows. The back and forth captures a loving, yet patronizing vibe that may feel familiar for, well, a lot of people.
Celebrate the Holidays With Your Favorite TV Shows
Sometimes, a good holiday episode from your favorite TV show is better than a full-fledged movie—and it's a lot more tailored to you anyway, because if you're a fan of Cheers, then you're probably going to be down for the Christmas special, too. So we went and tried to pick a few across the board. Not a fan of the holidays? Got you covered. More inclined to celebrate the meaning of the holiday season without all the decorations? Maybe give Lost's holiday-adjacent episode a shot. What we're saying is that no one has to feel left out of the cold, shiny season if they don't want to. Here are the best Christmas episodes ever.
Whether you're a fan of the holiday season or you're looking for someone who despises it as much as you, there's a TV episode for you.
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