The 25 Best Christmas Sitcom Episodes of All Time

Family sitcoms have an advantage over their workplace and hang-out peers, because they get to have fun with characters that still believe in Santa Claus. Home Improvement took that plot to a totally believable extreme by having Brad and Randy tell their little brother Mark that St. Nick kicked the bucket six years ago—just before Mark was born! If you think Tim and Jill Taylor are gonna let them get away with busting Mark’s Christmas bubble, think again. On top of that, Randy makes too big of a scene at the annual Christmas pageant and Tim’s “more power” holiday decorations send him to the hospital.

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Christmas is a multi-faceted holiday, with all those twinkling lights trying to brighten the darkest, most depressing time of year. If you prefer the sweeter side of the season, then you can’t go wrong with The Brady Bunch. This saccharine episode embodies all the uplifting parts of the season, as Alice and the kids try their hardest to cure Carol Brady of a sudden bout of laryngitis that threatens to ruin her performance at the Christmas service. Cindy has the most direct idea: go straight to the man in charge (Santa) and ask him for a miracle. The Brady Bunch was always TV candy, and that’s never more appropriate than at Christmas.

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Sitcom families should know better than to try to travel during a major holiday. The Tanner family learned this lesson the hard way in Full House’s very first Christmas show. A snowstorm grounds their flight at a random airport, leaving the Tanners and a plane full of patient passengers (can you imagine being stuck anywhere with Joey Gladstone?) stuck in a baggage claim. But just as the stranded family’s Christmas spirit dips dangerously low, Uncle Jesse comes through with a rousing speech that would make Jimmy Stewart proud. We know Jesse’s speech impresses at least one passenger: a cranky old man that might just be Kris Kringle.

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Christmas 2020 is going to be one unlike any we’ve ever collectively experienced, as we stay as isolated as possible in order to keep from exposing our loved ones to danger. In that context, Fresh Prince’s Season 2 Christmas episode feels more poignant than ever. The cast doubles in size with the arrival of Aunt Viv’s sisters, including a fantastically feisty Jenifer Lewis. There’s a literal closeness to this episode, since the cabin they rented is half the size they expected. But there’s a familiar familial closeness between all of these characters, especially as they deal with the fallout of a burglar stealing their Christmas. This episode is what Christmas in a big family feels like.

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The holidays are a time for togetherness—and oh wow, do the Winslows learn that in this episode. When they find out that their epically annoying neighbor Steve Urkel has been left all alone on Christmas, the family reluctantly makes space for the nerd around their tree. But this episode is more than just Urkel Ruins Christmas; it packs in more holiday episode tropes than any other entry on this list, between all the caroling, last-minute shopping, and further confirmation that Santa is totally real in the TGIF-verse. What really makes this episode special, though, is the picture perfect Christmas morning that the Winslows wake up to. It’ll make your heart grow three sizes.

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It’s usually disappointing when a sitcom trades in laugh lines for “awww” moments, but that change in tone can work in an episode’s favor—especially if it’s a Christmas episode. For instance, there aren’t a lot of sock hop-era hijinks in this Happy Days ep. Instead, we see a softer, vulnerable side of The Fonz as it becomes clearer to Richie that his tough guy hero is bluffing about catching a bus home for the holidays. Fonzie has nowhere to go, and Mr. Cunningham is determined to have a strict, family-only Christmas celebration. This truly touching tale highlights a great truth about the holiday: everyone is family when you welcome them into your home at Christmas.

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Who better to ride the rollercoaster of emotions that come along with Christmas than a family of secret aliens learning about all the holiday hoopla for the first time? The Solomons go all in on Christmas by getting mall jobs and searching for the perfect presents. It doesn’t take long for these scouts to observe the dark side of the holiday. Sally gets mobbed by shoppers at her gift-wrapping station, mall elf Harry finds out his new boss is just a random dude in a red suit, and Dick learns that you can’t just chop down any tree you see. This episode makes the nightmares of Christmas legitimately hilarious.

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As a sitcom about an adult married couple with no kids, The Bob Newhart Show always delivered unique Christmas episodes. The show nailed it with its first holiday episode, which wisely used Bob’s profession as a psychologist to get into seasonal depression. Outside of the annual airings of A Charlie Brown Christmas, you just didn’t see this kinda stuff on TV in 1972. But what makes this episode so special is really the chemistry between mild-mannered Bob and the gutsy Emily. When it’s just the two of them in their apartment, cuddled up on the couch or kissing by the Christmas tree—that’s what real Christmas romance looks like.

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TGIF shows always had melodramatic music cued up and ready for a teachable moment, but shows rarely went as hard as Boy Meets World did in its first Christmas episode. When Cory finds out that Shawn’s dad was laid off, he goes out of his way to make sure his best bud has a memorable Christmas. It’s memorable all right, but for the wrong reasons. Shawn doesn’t like Cory’s pity present, and Cory goes full brat when Shawn doesn’t thank him for giving up his basketball. What follows is a shockingly nuanced—and touching—lesson in selflessness. Also: Mr. Feeny in a Santa suit.

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Since it starred Elf’s leading lady Zooey Deschanel, New Girl had an ounce of Christmas cheer in pretty much every episode. That ounce always expanded to a ton when the holiday season rolled around, and that’s clear in Season 4’s phenomenal “LAXmas.” So few sitcoms dig into the specific hell of air travel in the days leading up to Christmas, and “LAXmas” goes there by pitting the cast against selfish passengers, nightmarish waitlists, and one extremely rude airport employee played with Grinchy gusto by Billy Eichner. But through the din of despair, the love that these friends have for each other rings louder and clearer as the episode builds to its Love, Actually inspired climax. It’s big, cheesy, and earnest—just like Christmas.

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You don’t go to NewsRadio, the snarkiest sitcom of the ’90s, for warmth and/or merriment. You go to NewsRadio for the biting comedy—and this episode gives the gift of sidesplitting laughter. The setup is pure NewsRadio madness: tycoon Jimmy James gives each member of the WNYX staff a new Miata, except for office clutz Matthew who gets a box of Fibber McGee & Molly cassette tapes. What follows is a masterclass in comedic acting, as Matthew slowly realizes that maybe he really got the shaft for Christmas. There’s no lesson to be learned here, no happy ending tied up in a bow. This one is just funny.

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Christmas comes to Cheers and the gang’s got the blues. Rebecca’s making the staff work on Christmas Eve, Woody’s missing his mom’s bone-dry stuffing, Norm has to work part time as a Santa, and Frasier is angry about—all together now—the increasing commercialization of Christmas. Sam ends up having the worst night of all, though, when he finds out that Rebecca bought everyone presents. What this one lacks in any sentiment, which we know Cheers excelled at, this episode more than makes up for with an overload of late ’80s holiday vibes.

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No show dissected cultural norms like Community. When this show was operating at peak efficiency, it created masterworks of sitcom storytelling every single week—and Season 3’s “Regional Holiday Music” is a perfect example of that. This episode skewers the Glee craze by cramming an entire holiday musical into a half hour episode (with a dash of Invasion of the Body Snatchers because Community’s gotta Community). But Community never critiqued a genre without genuine insight, and this episode deals with our very real desire to cover up the bad stuff in our heads with tinsel and just ignore it. In the end, the only way we can get through the holidays—and life—is by helping each other out. Also all of the songs are killer Christmas classics.

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Christmas comes to Mayberry, and it’s not the upbeat event that you might expect. All Sheriff Taylor and Deputy Fife want to do is clear out the holding cells for Christmas Eve so everyone can spend the night with their loved ones. But right before Andy hits the lights on the empty police department, the town scrooge demands that a moonshiner to be arrested. Andy’s solution: stage a big family Christmas behind bars so everyone can be together—everyone except that old scrooge. This episode ramps up The Andy Griffith Show’s usual sincerity to tell a tearjerking story of one lonely old man who doesn’t know how to ask for friendship.

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You can’t go wrong with a Bob’s Burgers Christmas episode. They’re all magical in their own way, especially “Bob Rest Ye Merry Gentle-Mannequins” and “Nice-Capades.” But “The Bleakening,” a two-part musical, feels special. Maybe it’s the expanded running time, or the introduction of a new Krampus-style Christmas monster called the Bleaken. Maybe it’s because the Belcher kids strike out on their own for adventure, like three Kevin McCallister’s with drastically different confidence levels. Or maybe it’s the fact that this holiday extravaganza culminates with the Belchers celebrating at a queer underground party space run by drag queens. Whatever the reason, these episodes are a highlight of the season.

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Since every episode of Bewitched is steeped in the supernatural, the show had to go extra hard to make their first Christmas episode magical. The solution? Have Samantha and Darrin take in an orphan with an attitude for the holiday and when that kid says he doesn’t believe in Santa, have’em pop up to the North Pole so St. Nick can set the kid straight. No sitcom does Christmas like Bewitched, because Bewitched is the only sitcom wherein Santa is a recurring character.

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Christmas can be tough for everyone, and Frasier—a sitcom about a divorced man living with his blue collar dad—spoke to how the holiday is difficult for fathers and sons. After all, gift giving can shine a spotlight on just how little a dad knows about his kid and vice versa. In addition to being quick-witted affair (“The Cranes of Maine have got your Living Brain!”), this episode unpacks how hard it can be for parents to find common ground with their children. It’s especially hard when a son wants a stupid hunk of plastic called Outlaw Laser Robo Geek and you don’t find out until Christmas Eve.

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Like the Full House, Fresh Prince, and New Girl episodes above, this festive Golden Girls outing also gets into the dangers of being sitcom characters trying to travel at Christmas. From a hostage situation to a freak storm, calamity after calamity ends up stranding the girls in a diner and away from their families. But like the best episodes of the holiday season, “‘Twas the Nightmare Before Christmas” highlights what viewers knew all along: these four are family, in every way that truly matters. This episode also has the funniest punchline in the entire series (“I’m surprised you were able to walk in October!”).

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What’s worse than getting stuck on a subway train on Christmas Eve? Getting stuck in that dirty, confined space on Christmas Eve with Steve Urkel! But y’know what? If anyone can turn a bad situation into a nice one, it’s this perpetually (often cluelessly) optimistic nerd next door. Urkel knows that all you need for a rad Christmas experience is a little faith and positivity. And it turns out that Christmas cheer can overcome the most grumpy people of all: commuters. “Christmas Is Where the Heart Is” takes the stranded-at-Christmas trope that’s led to a few classics and does it perfectly. Jaleel White’s performance in this one is so good that it might convince you to spend an entire Christmas Eve on public transportation.

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Even though Secret Santa seems like it should be the less stressful way to celebrate the holidays with friends, it always puts too much pressure on that one gift to be extra special. That’s what the loft-mates find out in “Christmas Eve Eve,” the last of New Girl’s stellar run of Christmas episodes. This episode strikes the right balance, even more than “LAXmas.” It’s hysterical in all the right places (Retired Rear Admiral Jay Garage-A-Roo) while never losing its big, sentimental heart. Knowing that this episode is the last New Girl Christmas, seeing the look Jess gives each of her best friends while Darlene Love sings and shredded receipts flitter from the roof like snow, it brings the message of New Girl—and of Christmas–home: this is a holiday for your family, and sometimes that family is your friends.

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No show captures the awkwardness of modern life (well, pre-pandemic life) quite like The Office. Even 15 years later, all the emotions in “Christmas Party”—Phyllis’ pain, Stanley’s boredom, Jim’s panic, Angela’s rage—still feels fresh. It’s also remarkable that no other workplace sitcom (other than the UK Office) has come close to capturing what it’s like being forced to have after hours holiday fun at work. But besides all the cringe humor caused by Michael turning Secret Santa into Dirty Santa/White Elephant/Yankee Swap, there are packets of joy for you to open every year (hint: they’re in the teapot).

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A lot of holiday sitcom episodes have got the merry and jolly parts of the season down. But too many of them forget the flip side of Christmas—the loneliness that we all feel in some way or another around this time of year. That’s why That Girl’s holiday masterpiece “Christmas and the Hard-Luck Kid” is a must watch every single season. By going out of her way to keep a lonely little boy company on Christmas Eve, Ann Marie ends up sacrificing all of her traditions. What does Christmas look like when it doesn’t look like anything recognizable? How do you keep the magic alive? This episode will give you a hint, and it’ll make you feel all the emotions.

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Christmas is painful. The point of most holiday sitcom episodes is to either gloss over that pain with jokes or acknowledge them fleetingly… and then get to the jokes. “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” is unlike any other Christmas TV episode, even any other Christmas special, in that it exists fully in the overlap of pain and joy that really is what Christmas is all about. It does so via a flawlessly executed, vintage claymation style that will ping your nostalgia radar. But the cheerfully Christmas aesthetic masks Abed’s real, relatable hurt as he embarks on a search for the true meaning of Christmas. The biggest surprise of all, though, is that this episode actually does find the true meaning of Christmas.

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They don’t make them like this anymore—seriously. With a cast of nothing but Broadway-ready performers and vaudeville legends, The Dick Van Dyke Show was primed for a Christmas special from day one. They didn’t get around to it until Season 3, when the already brilliant cast had formed a tight-knit, synchronized ensemble, the sitcom equivalent of the Rockettes. “The Alan Brady Show Presents” doesn’t have a plot beyond “Pompous star Alan Brady makes his writers (and one writer’s wife) perform in his Christmas special.” That’s it, that’s the show. And what a show it is! This is a series of song and dance sketches that will make you laugh as hard as anything else on this list while legitimately enchanting you. The real show-stopping moment comes from trained dancers Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, who pull off a Santa suit dance number that’s the most charming thing you’ll see on TV this holiday season.

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The perfect Christmas sitcom episode has to be, well, perfect. It has to be funny, obviously. It has to have a heightened level of heart and it has to tug at your heart. And to really be great, it has to stir something within you and stay with you. The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s “Christmas and the Hard Luck Kid II”—named so as it was co-written by the legendary James L. Brooks, who also wrote the That Girl episode—crosses all of those must-haves off the list. It will make you giggle and cackle (Lou realizing he gave Mary a blank check for Christmas). Your heart will swell when you see how excited Rhoda is to give Mary a rotisserie (and one egg), and your heart will break when Mary has to scarf down a sandwich so she can make it back to the office in time to work the Christmas Eve night shift.

The part that will stick with you, though, is the loneliest part—the stretch where Mary’s alone in the newsroom with nothing but the TV to keep her company. This quiet moment, it’s the muddling through somehow that Judy Garland sang about. It’s this very relatable resignation to the reality that the hard luck kid is now a hard luck adult—and there’s nothing you can do about it. Christmases change as we change, and some years they look like freaking out because you’re all alone in a huge building and you heard the elevator doors open.

But, as with so many episodes on this list, “Christmas and the Hard Luck Kid II” believes in the power of Christmas—a holiday that is powered by people and not dependent on specific places or gifts above a certain price point. This episode is the reason for the season.

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