There’s so much focus on holiday movies this time of year, but the best Christmas TV episodes can bring just as much joy.
Or not!
For every perfectly crafted episode that makes you feel like you're drinking hot cocoa with your parasocial fictional besties, there’s a filler ep that makes you glad we live in the age of fast-forward.
This is no time to be playing around and sitting through the disappointing duds. We’ve done the legwork for you and are happy to share our findings. To prepare for the holiday season, we sourced the eight holiday episodes that will give you that crispy yule log feeling in your heart…and eight to avoid. Happy viewing!
Best Christmas TV Episodes
New Girl, season four, episode 11, “LAXmas”
New Girl has a few great yuletide episodes, and it was hard to pick a favorite (“Christmas Eve Eve” comes in at a close second), but anyone who has to travel for the holidays will understand the special spot in our hearts for “LAXmas,” which sees the titular Girl, Jessica Day, bring her signature sunny disposition to possibly one of the most stressful places on Earth during one of the most stressful times on Earth: Los Angeles International Airport, during the holidays. The plot is simple as she tries to get all her friends onto their flights, while they weigh the pros and cons of spending the holidays with various loved ones. The episode also contains one of the best lines in the show, which guest star Billy Eichner clearly cribbed from his own show, Difficult People:
The Mindy Project, season two, episode 11, “Christmas Party Sex Trap”
This episode has everything: a wine bra, something called scream therapy, Maria Menounos singing “Santa Baby,” three or four different love interests for Mindy Kaling, and shots of New York in the snow that are way prettier than New York actually looks when it snows. Every cast member’s hair looks especially good, and Chris Messina does an erotic dance. No spoilers, but this episode does contain the ultimate Christmas fantasy: making out in the snow and eating a sugar cookie at the very same time.
Friends, season seven, episode 10, “The One With the Holiday Armadillo”
A truly important episode of television, “The One With the Holiday Armadillo” is about quirky friends living in New York City, yes, but it’s also about time and memory and how we pass traditions down to our children. Ross tries to teach his son Ben (tiny Cole Sprouse!) about Hanukkah by way of the Hanukkah Armadillo (“Santa’s representative for all the Southern states, and Mexico”). It’s sweet and weird, and it’s balanced out by themes of death and loss in the episode, the darkness of winter that makes us determined to encounter the light. Also, there’s a drum set and a tarantula.
Modern Family, season three, episode 10, “Express Christmas”
Realizing that the family won’t be together on the actual day, the Pritchett-Delgado-Dunphy clan scrambles to throw a last-minute celebration they can all participate in together, and the results are just plain fun and heart-warming. Shopping, decorating, cooking and other traditions have to be planned and executed all in the space of about a day, but the family has so much fun putting it all together, the final result is hardly the point, proving that the holidays aren’t really about what you do but whom you do it with.
The O.C., season one, episode 13, “The Best Chrismakkuh Ever”
In this consummate California Christmas episode, the troubled rich white people of Orange County celebrate “Chrismukkah,” an “über-holiday” mashup of Christmas and Hanukkah repped by silver-tongued dork prince Seth Cohen (Adam Brody). “There’s no choosing in Chrismakkuh” Seth claims, arguing that he can have two holidays and two girls competing for his heart. Ironically, the original message of Hanukkah is about never, ever assimilating to mainstream culture or compromising on religious principles—but that message has evolved over the years! Millions of families celebrate elements of both Christmas and Hanukkah joyfully, and Seth Cohen shows us how to do it in style. Crucially, Summer (Rachel Bilson) arrives at a holiday party in a strapless evening gown and a tiara, then does a surprise costume change that includes a gold whip.
Grey’s Anatomy, season two, episode 12, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”
Nothing says Christmas like a reluctant child undergoing a heart transplant! Unless it’s a doting father of five heading into brain surgery! Thankfully this unusually sweet episode of Grey’s gives us a one-time-only respite from watching slow deaths of beloved characters in honor of the holiday. This episode has some gentle cynicism, which only makes the emotional payoff better—we start with some stats about suicide, break into multiple plot lines about struggling with vulnerability, and learn the important lesson that you shouldn’t assume you know what a Jewish person looks like. Christmas miracles come in the form of the melting of Christina Yang’s heart, and the gift only Shonda Rhimes can give: sparing absurdly likable guest stars from their untimely, cinematic deaths.
The Office, season two, episode 10, “Christmas Party”
Every Christmas episode of The Office is exquisite, but this one has the perfect combination of deep discomfort and warmth that typify work holiday parties. Michael wants the office to have a “Playboy mansion party” for Christmas. He gifts Ryan an iPod video in the Secret Santa and receives a knit oven mitt in return. Jim plans to tell Pam how he feels (spoiler: Jim does not tell Pam how he feels for, like, 12 more episodes). Dwight quotes Billy Zane, from Titanic, which we should all do more often. Like all great Office episodes, it brings us right to the brink of despair, then pulls itself back together.
30 Rock, season three, episode 6, “Christmas Special”
The chaos of staying at work over the holidays, the stress of hosting your family, the pressure of live television and the added mania of putting on a musical variety show all combine to make this one of the 30 Rock-iest episodes of the iconic show, as Jack Donaghy orders the TGS crew to work through Christmas in order to put on a live show…so he doesn’t have to go home and take care of his mom…after he accidentally ran over her in his car. Hey, it could happen to anyone.
Worst Christmas TV Episodes
Glee, season two, episode 10, “A Very Glee Christmas”
We get a Christmas cookie and a tight red sweater in the first two shots! We get a spangled red and gold tree! We get a group of exceptionally talented singers, covering Christmas classics! And yet—the combination of Glee and the holidays is as sugary as a gingerbread man dunked in eggnog, covered in frosting, and fried in an apple cider batter. Just watch Kurt and Blaine’s “Baby It’s Cold Outside” and skip the rest.
Schitt’s Creek, season four, episode 13, “Merry Christmas, Johnny Rose”
Yeah, I said it—this is not Schitt’s Creek’s best work. Aesthetically, this ep is a slam dunk—you can practically feel the snowflakes melting on your tongue and the hairs from Moira’s wig getting stuck in your throat. The sweaters, tinsel, and Alexis’s messy bun are perfect. But it’s hard to watch the Rose family do their wealthy-person-whining shtick on Christmas, no matter how adorable they look doing it. A Christmas miracle does ultimately come to pass, but it’s another classic example of the struggling town giving generously to the spoiled, ungrateful Roses.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine, season four, episode 10, “Captain Latvia”
Hear us out. This is not a bad episode of television, but it’s not the best of what B99 could do. While the sitcom was definitely family-friendly, it was not about or for children, and the main plot line being about finding a Christmas gift for Boyle’s kid, even though it led him and Peralta to a crime ring, was just a bit too Santa-y. That coupled with the fact that the secondary plot was about a caroling competition just gives the whole episode a little less punch than we want from a show that is, after all, about cops in a major city. Yes, warm hugs and good feels, of course, always. But toys and songs? This isn’t Kindergarten Nine-Nine. It’s a skip.
Gilmore Girls, season seven, episode 11, “Santa’s Secret Stuff”
Look—almost every Gilmore Girls episode feels cozy and Christmassy, even the ones that take place in the summer. This one checks every late-December box: snow, trees, stockings, Santa, mistletoe, frosting, reindeer, caroling. And that’s just in the first 10 minutes. But the roiling anxiety in the story line undercuts every warm and comfortable feeling—Christopher and Lorelai are failing to Frankenstein themselves and their offspring into a happy family, Luke is on the brink of losing custody of April, and Lane’s pregnancy has effectively ruined her life (Justice for Lane Kim! Get that girl a time machine and some birth control!). Stars Hollow looks cute in the snow, but Christmas with the Gilmores will make you want to spend your holidays on a silent retreat, far away from blood relatives.
Happy Endings, season three, episode 7, “No-Ho-Ho”
Like many Christmas episodes, this is about someone hating Christmas and then realizing its value. This is a great example of Taking That Concept Too Far—we, the audience, are robbed of Christmas and are only reunited with its spangly joy in the last 90 seconds of the episode. Every actor on Happy Endings is absurdly, almost scarily charming, but nobody is more charming than Christmas.
How I Met Your Mother, season eight, episode 10, “The Over-Correction”
This episode uses a great and important comedy trope: people hiding in each other’s closets. But it also uses a bad and boring comedy trope: adult men who have weird sex issues with their moms. Get this off our televisions! Especially in the holy month of December! In this episode Marshall struggles as his mom tries to date, and Lily actually throws up at the idea of their parents dating. Yes, that’s not great, but seeing your adult mom as a fully realized person is important! And if your mom refers to her boobs as “the Minnesota twins,” well, all the better. This episode is disappointingly cheerless overall—it’s not frosted, tinsely, glowing, silver with bells and mist, or snowy. I would rather be at a mall in Canada than with this crew on Christmas.
Community, season two, episode 11, “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”
Of all the many Community episodes that use Abed’s murkily defined personality quirks, this may be the most obnoxious. Due to life stress, Abed is hallucinating that everyone is made of clay, so the episode is claymation. What this accomplishes in the context of what started as a show about a shady lawyer going back to college? Unclear. Community was rightly applauded for taking storytelling risks, but risks are only risks if there’s a genuine chance of failure, and for every “Remedial Chaos Theory” (an all-time great episode of television), there’s…this. You’re far better off watching “Regional Holiday Music,” the Christmastime Glee parody they did a season later.
Sherlock, season three, episode three, “His Last Vow”
After two seasons of silly but still very fun detective capers, Sherlock season three was, let’s say, uneven. “His Last Vow” represents a new low for the show and takes us into “The Abominable Bride,” which people refer to as the series’s Christmas special. It’s not, really: “Vow” takes place at Christmastime; “Bride” doesn’t. That episode is all a dream, a doubly insulting twist when you realize that the twist of “Vow” is also “It’s all in his head.” Like, seriously, are we just…not solving mysteries anymore? This show used to have plots! Anyway, you might be lulled into thinking this will be a cozy mystery because it starts with cute British Christmas cottagecore, but then Watson’s pregnant wife gets drugged to sleep and you remember, oh yeah, season four is about to happen.