I love the Office Christmas episodes. The tension always seems a bit more amped up as the staff attempts to celebrate the holidays. Tonight’s episode delivered some of what we’ve seen in previous Office holiday episodes. There was karaoke and Angela’s disapproving comments about worshiping Santa and all of that. And tonight, to add to that, the staff got some news about the fate of Dunder-Mifflin, Michael put the Christ back into Christmas and Andy attempted to woo Erin with birds.
"Is it my fault that the first eight days is basically just thirty birds?"
Oh, Andy. He tries so hard. You can’t fault the guy for being romantic and thinking big. We all know he has a crush on Erin and signs point to Erin reciprocating the feelings but the two have yet to confess their fondness for one another. So Andy tried to use Secret Santa as a way to impress Erin. His grand plan was to get her the gifts from the “12 Days of Christmas” song. This included live turtledoves, French hens, a partridge, geese ‘a laying and swans ‘a swimming. Unfortunately, the birds were wreaking havoc on Erin’s life (and face.) So she didn’t appreciate the gift and it was worse when she found out it was Andy who was sending the stuff. Apparently, his romantic gesture was coming off more like harassment. But he saved himself in the end when the ten-drummers-drumming showed up. Erin seemed truly charmed by the serenade and even more so by Andy doing the running-man while smashing the symbols together. So cute!
“Oscar and the warehouse guy. Go Oscar. Go gay warehouse guy!”
Pam noticed Oscar was scoping out one of the warehouse guys and decided to step in and help him out by introducing herself to the guy and then giving Oscar an introduction. It’s good to see Oscar getting out there again. I don’t think he’s been with anyone since Gil. The funniest part about this little sub-plot was the way Oscar behaved before and during his interactions with Matt or Mark or whatever his name was. He was shy and a little nervous when he got to meet the guy and it seemed like they hit it off. Then when gay-warehouse-guy was leaving, Oscar intentionally called him by the wrong name. Classic. Who knew Oscar could play it cool? I’m hoping we’ll see more of this Oscar/warehouse-guy relationship in the future.
“His last name is Christ. He has the power of flight. He can heal leopards.”
Being the big baby that he is, Michael couldn’t sit idly by while Phyllis took over the role of Santa Claus (or “Tranny-Claus” as Michael put it) for the office Christmas party. So, having the only Santa Claus costume in existence that reverses into a Jesus-costume (if Jesus had a snowy-white beard and dressed in a robe that looked like a karate gi), he tried to trump Phyllis’ Santa act by showing up as Jesus and heckling Phyllis while she gave out the gifts.
“We’re going out of business!”
After calling David Wallace to complain about having to dress as Jesus for the Christmas party, Michael caught the CFO at a bad time and ended up learning “off the record” that Dunder-Mifflin has a buyer. Ok, so maybe David was just down about finding out he’s going to be unemployed but I really don’t get why he tells Michael top-secret information. Or at the very least, I don’t get why he sounds surprised and disappointed when he learns Michael told everyone else.
Michael’s like a little kid when it comes to news like this. He takes the information the grown-up gave him and breaks it down to his own understanding. Since Wallace and some of the other execs are losing their jobs, that must mean everyone is. And that’s what he told the staff. But after a group-speaker-phone session with Wallace, it’s made clear that while some of the corporate people are going to be out of work, the Scranton branch is safe.
“I can use this for so many nuts! Macadamias, Brazil nuts, pecans, almonds, clams, snails…”
Dwight spent a good part of the episode trying to figure out his Christmas present. As he was getting it piece by piece, he had to try to figure out how to put the pieces together. In the end, it turned out to be an elaborate-looking metal nutcracker… which Dwight is apparently going to use for clams and snails, among the other “nuts” he listed. The best part of this was seeing Michael’s face as Dwight figured out what the gift was. Michael’s a bit of a bonehead and he spent most of the episode proving that but it was cute to see the pleased expression on his face as he watched Dwight discover his gift.
