Stories & Features

A shortcut to seasonal episodes of your favourites on all the streaming services

If you're like many of us – you're looking forward to some downtime over the holiday period. If your plan is to use that downtime to catch up on some streaming – consider settling in with your laptop or tablet instead of sitting in front of the TV. You'll save on energy costs – particularly if your regular streaming device of choice is a game console. A year of streaming on a PS4 and a television can cost almost $30 – compared to less than $5 on a Surface Pro laptop.

But however you choose to stream – you can make better use of your time if you're not scrolling through endless lists and menus. If you love a good holiday episode, we've done the work for you.

Behold: the ultimate holiday episode guide for some of Canada's most popular streaming services.

A few caveats: you won't find holiday specials or TV movies in this list. We're focusing on when the holidays appear in regular shows. We've also stuck to comedies and dramas, although you can also find holidays popping up on reality shows and kid's TV. And finally – the list definitely isn't exhaustive – it's mostly familiar names and popular hits. For this list, we figured the holidays are a great time to rewatch some favourite shows, so hopefully this makes it easy to skip the scrolling.

Amazon Prime

If you've splurged on a Prime membership to take advantage of free and fast holiday shipping, it's a great time to take advantage of some holiday streaming too. Amazon's own offerings tend to be darker fare, but a collection of fan favourites including Parks and Recreation await you too.

Comedies

3rd Rock from the Sun

• Season 2, episode 12: "Jolly Old St. Dick"
• Season 4, episode 9: "Happy New Dick!"

Community

• Season 1, episode 12: "Comparative Religion"
• Season 2, episode 11: "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas"
• Season 3, episode 10: "Regional Holiday Music"

Happy Endings

• Season 2, episode 9: "Grinches Be Crazy"
• Season 3, episode 7: "No-Ho-Ho"

Parks and Recreation

• Season 2, episode 12: "Christmas Scandal"
• Season 4, episode 10: "Citizen Knope"
• Season 5, episode 9: "Ron and Diane"

Will and Grace

• Season 4, episode 12: "Jingle Balls"
• Season 5, episode 11: "All About Christmas Eve"
• Season 6, episode 10: "Fanilow"
• Season 7, episode 12: "Christmas Break"
• Season 8, episode 9: "A Little Christmas Queer"

Dramas

Dawson's Creek

• Season 4, episode 9: "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"
• Season 6, episode 10: "Merry Mayhem"

House

• Season 1, episode 5: "Damned If You Do"
• Season 3, episode 10: "Merry Little Christmas"
• Season 4, episode 10: It's a Wonderful Lie"
• Season 5, episode 11: "Joy to the World"

Parenthood

• Season 4, episode 11: "What to My Wondering Eyes"

Crave

Crave's lineup includes the perennially-popular HBO back catalogue, so there's a lot to choose from. But it has some other old favourites as well, notably Seinfeld, home of Festivus.

Comedies

30 Rock

• Season 2, episode 9: "Ludachristmas"
• Season 3, episode 6: "Christmas Special"
• Season 4, episode 8: "Secret Santa"
• Season 5, episode 10: "Christmas Attack Zone"
• Season 7, episode 8: "My Whole Life Is Thunder"

The Big Bang Theory

• Season 2, episode 1: "The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis"
• Season 3, episode 11: "The Maternal Congruence"
• Season 6 , episode 11: "The Santa Simulation"
• Season 7, episode 11: "The Cooper Extraction"
• Season 8, episode 11: "The Clean Room Infiltration"
• Season 10, episode 12: "The Holiday Summation"

Broad City

• Season 1, episode 4: "Under the Mistletoe"

Cheers

• Season 1, episode 12: "The Spy Who Came in for a Cold One"
• Season 5, episode 25: "A House is Not a Home"
• Season 6, episode 12: "Christmas Cheers"
• Season 11, episode 11: "Love Me, Love My Car"

Frasier

• Season 1, episode 12: "Miracle on Third or Fourth Street"
• Season 3, episode 9: "Frasier Grinch"
• Season 5, episode 9: "Perspectives on Christmas"
• Season 6, episode 10: "Merry Christmas Mrs. Moskowitz"
• Season 7, episode 11: "The Flight Before Christmas"
• Season 8, episode 8: "Mary Christmas"
• Season 10, episode 10: "We Two Kings"

The Goldbergs

• Season 3, episode 10: "A Christmas Story"
• Season 4, episode 10: "Han Ukkah Solo"

Letterkenny

• Season 5/6 special: "A Letterkenny Christmas: The Three Wise Men"

Seinfeld

• Season 3, episode 12: "The Red Dot"
• Season 4, episode 13: "The Pick"
• Season 6, episode 10: "The Race"
• Season 9, episode 10: "The Strike"

Dramas

Dexter

• Season 1, episode 11: "Truth Be Told"
• Season 4, episode 4: "Dex Takes a Holiday"
• Season 7, episode 11: "Do You See What I See?"

Doctor Who

• Season 2: "The Christmas Invasion"
• Season 3: "The Runaway Bride"
• Season 4: " Voyage of the Damned"
• Season 6: "A Christmas Carol"
• Season 7: "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" and "The Snowmen"
• Season 9: "Last Christmas"

The Sopranos

• Season 3, episode 10: "To Save Us All from Satan's Power"

Disney+ Canada

The newest streaming service to arrive offers a juggernaut of non-holiday hits. You might be excited to settle in to rewatch movies from the epic Marvel Cinematic Universe – but there's also some older TV shows with some special holiday episodes that you might remember.

Comedies

Boy Meets World

• Season 1, episode 10: "Santa's Little Helper"
• Season 4, episode 12: "Easy Street"
• Season 5, episode 11: "A Very Topanga Christmas"
• Season 6, episode 11: "Santa's Little Helpers"

Even Stevens

• Season 1, episode 15: "Heck of a Hannukah"

Netflix Canada

Comedies

Michael Scott and his Dunder Mifflin colleagues may be Netflix's ultimate holiday binge-watching offering, but we've included a few others as well, in case you've seen Classy Christmas more than enough times. Holiday Armadillo, anyone?

Brooklyn 99

• Season 1, episode 11: "Christmas"
• Season 2, episode 10: "The Pontiac Bandit Returns"
• Season 3, episode 10: "Yippie Kayak"
• Season 4, episode 10: "Captain Latvia"
• Season 5, episode 10: "Game Night"

Friends

• Season 1, episode 10: "The One with the Monkey"
• Season 2, episode 9: "The One with Phoebe's Dad"
• Season 3, episode 10: "The One Where Rachel Quits"
• Season 4, episode 10: "The One with the Girl from Poughkeepsie"
• Season 5, episodes 10 and 11: "The One with the Inappropriate Sister" and "The One with all the Resolutions"
• Season 6, episode 10: "The One with the Routine"
• Season 7, episodes 9 and 10: "The One with All the Candy" and "The One with the Holiday Armadillo"
• Season 8, episode 11: "The One with the Creepy Holiday Card"
• Season 9, episode 10: "The One with Christmas in Tulsa"

How I Met Your Mother

• Season 2, episode 11: "How Lily Stole Christmas"
• Season 4, episode 11: "Little Minnesota"
• Season 6, episode 12: "False Positive"
• Season 7, episode 12: "Symphony of Illumination"
• Season 8, episode 10: "The Over-Correction"
• Season 8, episodes 11 and 12: "The Final Page Part One" and "The Final Page Part Two"

New Girl

• Season 1, episode 9: "The 23rd"
• Season 2, episode 11: "Santa"
• Season 4, episode 11: "LAXmas"
• Season 6, episode 10: "Christmas Eve Eve"

The Office (U.K. edition)

• The Christmas Special, part one and part two

The Office (U.S. edition)

• Season 2, episode 10: "Christmas Party"
• Season 3, episode 10: "A Benihana Christmas"
• Season 5, episode 11: "Moroccan Christmas"
• Season 6, episode 13: "Secret Santa"
• Season 7, episodes 11 and 12: "Classy Christmas"
• Season 8, episode 10: "Christmas Wishes"
• Season 9, episode 9: "Dwight Christmas"

Dramas

Some of these are little more on-theme than others, but we'll take any excuse to watch a favourite. So if the Queen's annual Christmas speech makes an appearance in an episode of The Crown – we say it counts.

Black Mirror

• Season 2, episode 4: "White Christmas"

The Crown

• Season 2, episodes 2 and 5: "A Company of Men" and "Marionettes"

Gilmore Girls

• Season 1, episode 10: "Forgiveness and Stuff"
• Season 2, episode 10: "The Bracebridge Dinner"
• Season 3, episode 10: "That'll Do Pig"
• Season 4, episode 11: "In the Clamor and Clangor"
• Season 5, episode 11: "Women of Questionable Morals"
• Season 7, episode 11: "Santa's Secret Stuff"
• A Year in the Life: Winter

Glee

• Season 2, episode 10: "A Very Glee Christmas"
• Season 3, episode 9: "Extraordinary Christmas"
• Season 4, episode 10: "Glee, Actually"

Grey's Anatomy

• Season 2, episode 12: "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"
• Season 6, episode 10: "Holidaze"
• Season 11, episode 22: "She's Leaving Home"

Mad Men

• Season 2, episode 4: "Christmas Comes But Once a Year"
• Season 5, episode 10: "Christmas Waltz"

Orange is the New Black

• Season 1, episode 13: "Can't Fix Crazy"

Riverdale

• Season 2, episode 9: "Silent Night, Deadly Night"

This is Us

• Season 1, episode 10: "Last Christmas"