We all know many Christmas movies, both classic and new, and love to watch them to feel the special magic of this holiday. But many series also decide to feature special episodes focusing on Christmas. Here's a bunch of them I'd like to recommend to you:
1. Orange is the New Black S01E13 "Can't Fix Crazy"
This refreshingly original serie, produced by Netflix, starts by telling a story of one Piper Chapman and keeps broadening it's perspectives to show a wide panorama of inmates from various backgrounds. This particular episodes has them trying to organise a nativity play, but between the personal and racial animosities and the prison staff's indifference and incompetence, it surely won't be easy. Rest assured that it's a rather comical take on the life in jail, so it won't spoil your Christmas joy.
2. Hey Arnold! S01E20 "Arnold's Christmas"
Many Christmas episodes are really touching and tell some heartbreaking stories: that's exactly the case of this story of the (American) football-headed boy we all earned to love in our childhood. After drawing Mr. Hyunh in the boarding house's Secret Santa lottery, Arnold decides to reunite him with his daughter (who had to stay back in Vietnam). It's no easy task: the Scroodge-like city archivists, Mr. Bailey, forces the protagonist to run his Christmas errands in exchange for information.
3. Futurama S02E04 "Xmas Story"
This animated science-fiction serie has been mocking many absurds and weaknesses of our society, and our consumerism-crazy vision of Christmas soon turned out to be a good material for criticism. It's Fry's first Xmas (as the holiday is called in the XXXI century) after being hibernated for a 1000 years, and it differs from what he used to know: palm trees are decorated in place of the now-extincted pine trees, to begin with. On top of all, Fry must hurry with his present shopping, as a murderous Santa Claus robot is terrorizing the city after sundown, his "naughty-or-nice" standards having been set way to high for anybody to survive it. Without spoiling it too much, let's just say that's one of the episodes in which the protagonists kindness overcomes all difficulties.
4. Mad Men S04E02 "Christmas Comes but Once a Year"
From the series which got literally everybody's attention and a huge critical acclaim despite all it's action consisted in drinking vodka, smoking lots of cigarettes and leaving the office angrily comes probably the most cynical episode in this list. Showing the first Christmas party at the newly opened advertising agency facing serious financial troubles and Don Draper's more and more frantic personal life, this episode is dangerously close to reality and far from the idealized vision of Christmas we'd like to be real.
5. Doctor Who "The Snowmen" (2012 Christmas special)
Each and every Christmas episode of Doctor Who is brilliant and crazy at once, being incredibly imaginative while also keeping the Cristmas spirit. This one's probably my favourite because of it's dickensian inspirations (hey, what else could it have been, it's set in XIX-century London. The Doctor, devastated by a personal loss which I shouldn't really disclose, decides to retire in that place and period. But he always seems to get in harm's way: this time it's huge killer snowmen and the malevolent doctor Symeon he'll have to save himself, and the world, from.
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