It’s time to celebrate the Christmas/ Chanukah/ Kwanza/ Festivus Holiday season, so all around Cinema Blend we’re enjoying Twelve Days of Christmas. Yes, we know traditionally the “12 days” start with Christmas, but we plan on being celebrated out by that time, so we’re pushing the twelve days leading up to the holiday.
Here in Blend Television we’re celebrating by counting down our some of our all time favorite holiday episodes, in an effort to boost your Christmas spirit. These aren’t the 12 best out there by any means, just twelve of our favorites. Some of them you might enjoy like we do. Others you might want to check out for the first time. So without further ado:
On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
The two part Christmas episode of the U.K. version of The Office served two purposes. The first was obviously that it was a Christmas themed episode. The second purpose was to wrap up the series by showing viewers the fictional aftermath of the documentary that was being filmed at Wernham Hogg.
Like the U.S. version of The Office, the original version, which starred the series creator, Ricky Gervais is about an typical office full of regular (though somewhat quirky) coworkers who have agreed to have their workplace filmed for a documentary. In the Christmas special, which serves as a two-episode series finale for the show, we find out how things worked out for everyone after the documentary aired on television.
We learn that David (Gervais) has been getting by using the shreds of fame that he earned after the documentary premiered by singing at nightclubs. Dawn and Lee moved to Florida where they are living illegally and somewhat unhappily with Lee's sister. Gareth is the general manager at the office and Tim hasn’t really done anything new or different.
Everyone gets together at the office for a Christmas party reunion and this is where everything comes together. Similar to the U.S. version, the U.K. version of The Office thrived off the hum-drum nature of the characters' lives. The special uses Christmas as a way to get everyone together and to end the series on a happy note. David actually manages to find a woman who can tolerate him. And through the use of a Secret Santa present, Tim gets one last chance to make Dawn realize that she can do a lot better than Lee. All in a days work at Christmas-time.
