The 10 best Christmas episodes on Showmax

We’re making a list, we’re checking it twice … It’s time to put your Showmax MyStuff function to use, and compile a list of Christmas and holiday-themed episodes to binge. We’ve picked 10 of our favourites to start you off…

10. Younger Season 5, episode 7: A Christmas Miracle

It’s a magical New York Christmas episode as Caitlin’s (Tess Albertson) roommate Rose Katz (Sarah Cohen) unwittingly plays matchmaker for Cailtin’s mom Liza (Sutton Foster) by inviting her to the Katz family Christmas holiday party, when her parents introduce Liza to the perfect man for her … Charles Brooks (Peter Hermann). Yes, Liza’s boss at Empirical Press and her ex, who dumped her in Season 5, episode 1 after finding out she’d been lying about her age! Dun dun duuuuh! 

But through the course of the episode, Charles takes advantage of the clean slate he’s been given, and starts to notice things about the “real” Liza that he’s never seen before. He finally gets over his anger and starts appreciating that Liza lied so that she could give Caitlin the education she deserved. And feelings reignite as the two bond over how much they love their kids. Their Christmas kiss might melt your heart!
PS: It’s not a Christmas quote, but it does bubble like champagne when Liza tries to scold Kelsey (Hilary Duff) for double dating and Kelsey claps back with, “You’ve been gaslighting an entire company since I met you. Can I have one secret?”

9. Superstore Season 3, episode 7: Christmas Eve

Whether it’s the Christmas carols that the staff have been listening to on repeat since late September, the mandatory cheerfulness, or the careful manoeuvring around religion and commercialism, Christmas is a battleground for shop staff. We raise our reindeer headbands in respect.

The Cloud 9 superstore crew have to work Christmas Eve to cater to those customers who’ve left everything to the last second (Hi, it’s us. Sorry. Thank you). Glenn (Mark McKinney) tries to convince Mateo (Nick Santos) that the holiday isn’t “overrated and flashy”. Garrett (Colton Dunn) and Jonah (Ben Feldman) bicker while dressed as Santa and his elf respectively. And when Amy (America Ferrera) wants to leave her good girl reputation behind with a Christmas adventure, she pulls her colleagues into the chaos – including getting everyone drunk, and driving shopping scooters to visit her ex so she can prove she once stole a car.

8. Parks and Recreation Season 2, episode 12: Christmas Scandal

Christmas is mega-cancelled! Tabloid newspaper the Pawnee Sun has framed goody-two-shoes Parks & Rec employee Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) for being Councilman Dexhart’s (Kevin Symons) seductive new mistress – after her holiday skit performance accidentally mirrors his latest (top secret) real-life scandal. 

Branded a scarlet woman, Lesie has to go into hiding instead of overseeing one of her favourite projects – the Christmas Village. This is a classic It’s a Wonderful Life-style story about what would happen at Christmas if you (in this case, Lesie) weren’t around to take care of everything. And it’s an eye-opener for Ron (Nick Offerman), and the rest of the staff, as to how many minute but important details their Deputy Director is juggling.

7. The Office Season 7, episode 11 and 12: Classy Christmas

The episode title has us cracking out the best china, anticipating a meeting of the Finer Things Club. But the real honours for stepping things up go to Michael (Steve Carell) – for being the pettiest elf of them all. He cancels the normal Dunder Mifflin office party to hold a new, posher version when he finds out that his ex, Holly Flax (Amy Ryan), is coming back to Scranton. 

And as extra Christmas treats, we get to be a fly on the wall and join Toby (Paul Lieberstein) on jury duty during the Scranton Strangler case, and see Dwight (Rainn Wilson) step up his attacks on Jim (John Krasinksi), starting with an especially vicious snowball fight that involves Dwight hiding inside a snowman, like a holiday-themed serial killer. 

6. Hacks Season 3, episode 7: The Deborah Vance Christmas Spectacular

This episode is crammed with the visual insanity of Christmas at standup comedian Deborah Vance’s (Jean Smart) Vegas mansion, including a mini mansion replica made of gingerbread – nibble at it and Deborah will act like the witch in Hansel and Gretel! 

The action centres on Deborah’s long-standing feud with her sister Kathy (J Smith-Cameron), thanks to Kathy’s affair with and then marriage to Deborah’s husband, Frank. And our favourite gifts from Santa come in what we don’t get to see, as we find out how Deborah’s taken revenge against Kathy over the years – including having her housekeeper Josephina (Rose Abdoo) scratch Kathy’s eyes out of all their childhood photos, and training her corgis to attack Kathy on sight. During the sisters’ “snowball” fight, Kathy rages about more insults, including: “Billboards for all your specials on my street. You told (news show host) Katie Couric I can’t read. You had missing person posters with my picture on it made up and put all over Monterey with my phone number. I got phone calls for months from people saying they’d seen me in the supermarket, and I looked horrible….”

5. Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 3, episode 10: Yippie Kayak

While some of our hearts belong to the Jingle All the Way Christmas movie parody in Captain Latvia (Season 4, episode 10), the star on the tree in this cop comedy series belongs to this episode, which pays tribute to Jake’s (Andy Samberg) favourite Christmas movie of all time, Die Hard. 

Jake gets to live out his Bruce Willis/John McClane fantasies, as he takes on a gang of criminals who’re holding Christmas shoppers hostage at a store. But the real hero of the hour might be Terry (Terry Crews), who has to abandon his (furious) family on Christmas Eve to save Jake, Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) and Gina (Chelsea Peretti) when they get in over their heads. Our angel in this twisted nativity play is Boyle, who gets to quote the PG-rated version of McClane’s most famous catchphrase. Say it with us: “Yippie kayak, other buckets”.

4. Ted Season 1, episode 7: Loud Night

This filthy-funny series about teenager John (Max Burkholder) and his foul-mouthed talking toy bear, Ted (voice by Seth MacFarlane), has both John and Ted wondering about the magic or miracle that brought Ted to life. During a visit to church during which John’s mom Susan (Alanna Ubach) triumphantly sings in the choir, Ted starts a blasphemous debate with the preacher in which he claims that he could be the new messiah. 

Meanwhile John’s dad Matty (Scott Grimes), who’s feeling hard done by, wishes on a star for someone who’ll listen to his side of the story, which brings his childhood favourite toy dump truck, Dennis (voiced by Bobby Strom) to life. Unlike Ted, who’s sweary but sweet, Dennis is a hilariously hateful piece of trash that encourages Matty to give voice to his most bigoted ideas. Whew. And the carol Silent Night gets critiqued as a possible hymn in praise of eating “tender and mild” babies. Brace yourselves for a very special holiday message, snowflakes!

3. Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 3, episode 9: Mary, Joseph, and Larry

Larry (Larry David) is a dyed-in-the-wool bah-humbugger, a Grinch, and the kind of man who’d be a King Herod apologist for the sheer pleasure of being contrarian. So set your cringe shields to maximum and let’s go! 

While chatting to the Joseph (David Koechner) taking part in a live-acting nativity scene, Larry offends him by first telling him about his gross personal problems, then openly lusting over the woman playing Jesus’s mom (Alexandra Wilson), commenting, “That Mary has quite the bod”, and asking whether Joseph doesn’t consider hooking up with her now and then. Not only isn’t Joseph in the mood for locker room talk, he tackles Larry to the ground for a fight in the hay. 

And there’s more horror to come as Larry’s wife Cheryl (Cheryl Hines) yells at him for eating the biscuit baby Jesus and Mary out of the baked nativity scene that her sister made, and Larry tries to weasel out of it by claiming he thought they were animal cookies in a zoo scene. Well, yes, technically, but… Peace on Earth and goodwill toward men? Zero.

2. Six Feet Under Season 2, episode 8: It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

As well as being a time for reunions, the holiday season is a time for remembering absent friends. And what better way to do that than watching this episode, which is set on the first anniversary of Nathaniel Fisher Sr’s death.

In a moment of dark comedy, David (Michael C Hall) has dollar signs in his eyes when a biker named Jesse Ray Johnson (Franc Ross) dies in a crash while dressed as Santa Claus in the episode’s grisly opening scene. Knowing that biker funerals usually mean big bucks, David agrees to hold the service at Fisher & Sons on Christmas Day, despite the fact that it’s the one day of the year that the funeral home traditionally closes. 

Meanwhile, family matriarch Ruth (Frances Conroy) is trying her best to keep the family’s Christmas traditions and prepare dinner, while adapting to the fact that David is gay and feeling hurt that he rejected the invitation she sent via him to include his partner Keith (Mathew St Patrick) and his niece Taylor (Aysia Polk). It’s a day full of difficult emotions, reconciliations, confessions and goodbyes.

1. 30 Rock Season 3, episode 6: Christmas Special

Jack (Alec Baldwin) reveals that his disapproving mother Colleen (Elaine Stritch) ruined Christmas every year by inviting a different strange man over to the house, so he decides to visit her in Florida on his way to Rio, instead of hosting her in New York. But the family reunion sours even more after he accidentally backs over her with his car, breaking her hip, then secretly waits eight minutes to call the ambulance in the hope that she might die. In a holiday miracle, she survives, and she flies to New York to force him to wait on her hand-and-foot until she recovers. 

Desperate to avoid any further mother-son time, Jack forces the TGS writers to start work on a Christmas TV special, which he’ll need to stay in the office and supervise. But as Jack demands more and more special touches so that the show “makes It’s a Wonderful Life look like Pulp Fiction,” Liz (Tina Fey) realises many traditions and treats Colleen invented so that her son would feel loved during the holidays without his father. 

Binge 30 Rock Season 1-7

PS: If you’re having none of this seasonal cheer, it might be time for a Succession binge. Look out for Season 2, episode 7, when we find out that for the Roy family, spending family time together at Christmas isn’t a tradition, it’s a bargaining chip between Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and his second ex-wife, Caroline (Harriet Walter).