Christmastime is hands down my favorite time of the year. I always do everything I possibly can to enjoy each moment of the holiday season before it ends and I'm forced to wait until next year to celebrate again. Some of my favorite traditions include helping my mom bake Christmas cookies (this year we baked gingerbread cookies, raspberry thumbprint cookies, pecan danties, almond crescents, butter cookies, and rainbow cookies in Christmas colors), driving around aimlessly to admire all of the festive lights, watching some of my favorite movies (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Elf, A Charlie Brown Christmas, The Santa Clause, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, It's a Wonderful Life, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Home Alone, Love Actually), enjoying way too many of Starbucks' gingerbread lattes while visiting all of the holiday shops and Christmas trees set up around New York City, reading some of my favorite stories (Nicholas Was... a short story by Neil Gaiman, Batman Noel [which Jen & I just did a Super Villains Comic Book Club episode about], Polar Express, Tim Seeley's Hack/Slash Christmas issue and Christmas Trees by Robert Frost), decorating everything in sight from my house to my desk and even my car, and loudly singing along to the Christmas music I grew up listening to (as Buddy the Elf says, "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear). Well this post has turned into a list of all of the Christmas entertainment I love, but the purpose was to focus on television episodes. Below are my 25 favorite Christmas themed television episodes in no particular order!
1) Buffy the Vampire Slayer - 'Amends' (Season 3, Episode 10) - Amends is the only Christmas episode of Buffy that was made in all eight seasons. In this episode Angel is haunted by his past by the forces of the The First Evil, and Buffy struggles to get rid of the Bringers. The episode ends with a beautiful snowfall in Sunnydale.
2) Batman: The Animated Series - 'Christmas with the Joker' (Season 1, Episode 2) - The Joker escapes from Arkham Asylum on Christmas Eve on a Christmas tree and begins to wreak havoc in Gotham. He kidnaps Commissioner Gordon, Barbara Gordon, and Harvey Bullock, and the gives Batman and Robin until midnight to save them.
3) Doctor Who - 'A Christmas Carol' & 'The Doctor, The Widow & The Wardrobe'- In 'A Christmas Carol,' my favorite Doctor, the charming number Eleven, attempts to save his companions Rory and Amy who are trapped on a space liner in a strange cloud belt. The Doctor has to convince the Scrooge, Kazran Sardick, to help and he does so by trying to change his past and make him into a nicer person. The following years' special 'The Doctor, The Widow, & The Wardrobe," is a Narnia-esque fairy tale in which two children happen upon a present the leads to an alternate universe. The universe is inhabited by a bunch a treelike people who are attempting to escape through a human vessel.
4) Supernatural - 'A Very Supernatural Christmas' (Season 3, Episode 8) - Sam and Dean chase a pair of Pagan gods who have assimilated themselves to society but still require a yearly sacrifice. The pair sell Christmas wreaths which ultimately ties them to the murders. All of their victims are mysteriously pulled up their chimneys before disappearing forever.
5) Tales From the Crypt - 'And All Through the House' (Season 1, Episode 2) - The episode begins with a woman murdering her husband in order to get his life insurance money. Afterwards she is chased all through her house by an escaped mental patient who is dressed in a Santa Claus outfit.
6) Smallville - 'Lexmas' (Season 5, Episode 9) - Lex Luthor, one of my favorite characters on Smallville, is shot and he slips into a coma. During the time he is unconscious he is visited by his deceased mother's ghost and she shows him what his life would be like if he denounced his father Lionel. Lex sees himself happily married to Lana who is pregnant with their second child.
7) Adventure Time - 'Holly Jolly Secrets Parts 1 & 2' (Season 3, Episodes 19-20) - In which, Fin and Jake find the Ice Kings video diary and try to decipher it in an effort to discover the Ice King's deepest secret. In part 2 of the special, the Ice King tries to steal his video diaries back from Fin and Jake.
8) The X-Files - 'How the Ghosts Stole Christmas' (Season 6, Episode 6) - Mulder and Scully spend their Christmas Eve investigating a haunted house in Maryland where a couple had made a lover's pact and died together so they would never have to be alone. Now the ghosts of the dead lovers are trying to convince the new living couple who move into the house to make the same pact.
9) Kim Possible - 'A Very Possible Christmas' (Season 2, Episode 16) - Kim is forced to travel around the world searching for Ron after a very thoughtful Christmas gift he plans for Kim goes awry. Ron and Drakken bond over a Christmas special they both love called Snowman Hank, and Kim and the rest of the Possibles save the day.
10) The OC - 'The Best Chrismukkah Ever' (Season 1, Episode 13) - In this very Seth Cohen centric episode, Seth struggles to keep his family together by celebrating Chrismukkah, a holiday he invented as a child which combines Christmas and Hanukkah. Meanwhile, Seth is also struggling to choose between Anna and Summer. He makes the same mixtape for them while Anna gives him a homemade comic book starting Seth as the hero, and Summer dresses up as Wonder Woman.
11) 3rd Rock From the Sun - 'Jolly Old St. Dick' (Season 2, Episode 12) - The High Commander played by John Lithgow, prepares his alien family for their first Christmas on Earth by cutting down a Christmas tree from someone's yard which results in his arrest. Meanwhile Sally gets a job wrapping presents at the mall, and Harry as one of Santa's elves. Although, Harry becomes enraged when he discovers that he is not in fact working for the real Santa.
12) The Big Bang Theory - 'The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis' (Season 2, Episode 11) - Shledon, already skeptical about the holiday season claiming that Christmas is just a ripoff of the Pagan holiday Saturnalia, has always been against gift giving. Once he learns that Penny has gotten him a gift, he struggles to find something for her that will be worth an equal value. Once he learns what Penny's gift is, Sheldon is uncharacteristically overcome with emotion, and it is the first time we see Sheldon embrace Penny in a hug.
No comments:
Post a Comment