JRS' Best of 2025

The trick, I guess, is to just keep moving.

JRS reviews classic holiday tearjerkers to rewatch before the New Year.

If you're a nostalgic, sappy, feeler like I am, then you probably think of the holidays as a time for getting that emotional hit. So I decided my Best Of this year would focus on holiday episodes from various classic series which I tend to turn to during the season to remind me of all the reasons. Join me as I check out some television episodes that might make you feel warm inside... or at least a little more thoughtful.

6. Amends, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In retrospect, knowing everything I do about Buffy, and its problematic creator Joss Whedon, I find I still want to include this episode. It sets the stage for a much wider arc for Willow Rosenburg, who two and three seasons later still struggles with issues of control in relationships. It makes an end-season fight between Buffy and Faith even more poignant, since here in the middle of the season Buffy's inviting Faith into her home. And it reflects a shadow from the end of Season Two, and is the second time Buffy has to accept her lack of control over Angel's living or dying - four seasons before the First Evil becomes the Big Bad.

Most of all, for me, there is a quiet grace in an accident of the weather letting Buffy and Angel have a quiet walk together through a snowy town, and giving Angel the chance to truly make amends. After all, you can't do it when you're gone - Angel's just seeking an exit from his pain when he seeks suicide by dawn. You can only make amends by going to people you've hurt while you're still around to do so. Was that miraculous snowfall a gift from God or God's punishment? Or maybe a gentle push, saying, stop dying on this hill, it's time to get to work? If you watch Angel the series, you know that became the theme of Angel's continued existence.

5. Santa Goes Downtown, Night Court.

I started watching this classic television series earlier this year, and this was the episode that convinced me the series had value. In this episode Michael J. Fox and Olivia Barash play an angry, rebellious teenage couple who don't believe anyone adult could possibly have any faith in them. And at first they're pretty much right - even Judge Harry Stone struggles to find space in his heart for these two, especially Eddie, who mocks everything, disguising a kid who's clearly been rejected, and probably by his own family. It takes a Santa Claus (played by Jeff Corey of True Grit) in a cloud of gin to force Harry's heart open and make Eddie and Mary believe again - maybe not in Santas Claus, but definitely in the power of human connection, and the need we all have, to be loved and cared for. Maybe a hug isn't that powerful - but when watching this episode, I kind of believe it is.

4. Dear Sis, M*A*S*H.

MASH is probably one of my favorite television series ever, and this episode is one I rewatch every year. I love Father Mulcahey, and this episode dives deeply into the psychology of a character who's often played as the straight man for the funny lines of others - although a character who's always able to call those others to some sort of moral accounting. Unfortunately, in the Christmas of this episode, Mulcahey's feeling fairly useless and unhappy. Even when he thinks he's helping - such as in the episode's opening, when he's trying to subdue a patient - he finds a morphine shot is more effective. Throughout the episode, we see how Mulcahey's actually one of the backbones of the camp, culminating in his transforming the episode's Grinch - one truly well-acted by David Ogden Stiers - transforming from a total Bah Humbug to the generous version of Scrooge. As a parting gift to him, and to us, the episode closes with a stirring performance of Dona Nobis Pacem, a prayer which unfortunately is never granted, as a few moments later a truck arrives, announcing the breaking of the Christmas truce and the arrival of more wounded to be cared for. A strange and touching episode that hits you deeply.

3. The Star of David, Father Brown.

Maybe this is too recent to count as a classic episode, but I quite liked The Star of David. The mystery is well constructed, with a splendid number of red herrings (at least for a dunderhead like me!) It revolves around two families, one wealthy and one poor, who find their lives intertwined by an accident of birth. A missing child, a lie revealed by investigation, and the mind of Father Brown all lead ultimately to a bittersweet ending. This story is wrapped in another as well, the story of Father Brown's church needing to host a Christmas celebration to impress, a tramp named Michael with an angelic voice and observant eye, and our cranky and ebullient Mrs. McCarthy. It all comes together in an ending which makes one wonder about miracles and the importance of love and family.

2. The Christmas Episode, The Nanny.

Call me weird, but I love this little episode which comes across almost as a takeoff of The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry. In that story a married couple give each other gifts which they had to earn by giving up that which they most loved. In this episode, Fran Fine gives up her grandmother's watch - to buy presents for the children she's been taking care of, and keep the gift from Mr. Sheffield that she'd thought would be a check, once she realizes how important it is to him. Touched by the gesture, Mr. Sheffield gives up his Christmas business trip to thank Fran - accidentally sitting on his own gift in the process, and sending himself to the hospital. In typical Nanny fashion the show is full of humor and lightness, at one point sharing that Fran's family once got a Hannukah bush instead of a Christmas tree. Despite the humor, though, it shares an enduring message of caring, not necessarily about things, but about human connection and the love we show through giving.

1. Death Takes a Holiday, M*A*S*H.

I cry every time I watch this episode, which has two major plotlines, both of which give until they hurt. In one, the camp is hosting a group of local orphans of the war, and collecting their own holiday gifts to give to the children so they can have a fantastic feast. Charles Winchester refuses to give... a scrooge-like act which we quickly discover is a cover for a plan for anonymous giving of his own. While that in itself would have been a nice episode, it quickly becomes complicated when he realizes the chocolate he secretly donated to the orphans has been sold off - in order to buy meals for the children for the coming month. Winchester, who loves his family tradition, can't gainsay the higher importance of food for the children, stating "It is sadly inappropriate to give dessert to a child who's had no meal," delivering the line in a way that only David Ogden Stiers could - a sort of double hopelessness. He spends the rest of the evening alone in his tent, staring at nothing, and is perhaps saved by the kindness of Max Klinger, who has heard the whole thing, and brings some food to Winchester, who is very confused - until Klinger tells him the meal must remain anonymous.

The second storyline revolves around Houlihan, Hawkeye and Hunnicut as the three magi try to secretly save the life of a sniper victim delivered during the feast for the orphans. As it becomes clear the victim, Finnegan, isn't going to make it, the work transforms into an effort to keep the victim alive until the day after Christmas. Hunnicut is almost obsessive in wanting to make sure Finnegan's children don't have to grow up thinking of Christmas as the day their father died, to the point of attacking Father Mulcahey, who comes by to give Finnegan his last rites. The three of them fail, with a little over a half hour to go, despite heroic measures - until Hawkeye manually changes the time of a clock, and Houlihan agrees to falsify the time of death.

Through it all, we see Colonel Potter moving between both storylines, as Santa Claus, both giving gifts to the children and trying to give support to the three heroes trying desperately to save the faith children have in Christmas (and maybe a little of their own faith, as all of them want to be home with their families one day.) A very moving story, which ends with the lines of Silent Night ringing in our ears.

So what about you?

What holiday episodes make you smile, weep, or something in between, classic or otherwise? I'd love to hear. Thanks for sharing, and have a very happy New Year. - JRS.