The Interlude

It’s December, baby. Where I am in Texas, that means enjoying iced holiday coffee drinks and reveling in the blissful two hours I get each morning to comfortably wear chunky sweaters before the temperature inevitably creeps upward and I change into a t-shirt. For me, December also means snuggling up on my parents’ couch with all the lights turned off, our Christmas tree glowing, and watching my ultimate comfort show: Gilmore Girls. While the show doesn’t have any Christmas specials, each season features a holiday themed episode. So, in honor of the show’s 20th anniversary earlier this year, here is my ranking of every Christmas episode from the series’ original run. Some spoilers ahead.

Screenshot from season 6 of “Gilmore Girls.”

7. “Just Like Gwen and Gavin” (6×12)

Let me start by saying this: I don’t think any episode of Gilmore Girls is bad. However, every show has its weakest episodes, and season six’s holiday episode could be one of them. While Lorelai runs a booth at the Winter Carnival, the holiday vibes are scant on this episode. The episode is more preoccupied with Paris’ dictatorial reign at The Yale Daily News, leading to Rory being elected the new editor-in-chief. Paris, of course, takes this comically poorly. It’s nice to watch the rare moments where Rory is good at her job, but I hate watching the episode’s other plot: Lorelai finding out about Luke’s daughter, April, whose existence he has been hiding for two months. Most Gilmore Girls fans know this is the beginning of the end. This episode does not bring me tidings of joy. It’s a huge bummer.

Screenshot from season 7 of “Gilmore Girls.”

6. “Santa’s Secret Stuff” (7×11)

This season actually has two Christmastime episodes. I don’t even want to talk about the fight scene at the end of the other episode, “Merry Fisticuffs,” so I will focus on this one instead. Lorelai and Christopher waited to celebrate Christmas until Rory returned from visiting Logan in London. The Christmas lights are still up, and the stockings are still hanging from the mantle, but Weston’s is out of peppermint coffee, and the tree is shedding needles. Rory and Lorelai’s belated celebration is representative of Christopher and Lorelai’s entire marriage and season seven in general: a contrived happiness that is ultimately depressing. It’s almost like the new writers (who replaced the show creators when they left the show after season six) knew they wouldn’t be able to replicate the snow-globe-come-to-life vibes of a usual Christmas episode, so they didn’t even try. At least in this episode we have Lorelai writing a character reference for Luke’s custody battle, meaning the end to Lorelai and Christopher’s marriage is on the horizon.

Screenshot from season 3 of “Gilmore Girls.”

5. “That’ll Do, Pig” (3×10)

Stars Hollow’s annual winter carnival serves as a backdrop to more of the Rory/Dean/Jess love triangle. Rory wants to go to the carnival with new beau Jess, but Jess tells Rory he has no interest in going to town events now that he’s won her over. This goes down as one of the many reasons I hate Jess and avoid watching the episodes with them as a couple. Who stops putting in effort as soon as the relationship starts? Rory and Dean decide to be friends, and when they link up together for the festivities, a jealous Jess decides to tag along. I don’t like either of these boys, so this conflict is just tiring. I would have rather seen Rory and Lorelai goofing around at the carnival together. Unfortunately, Lorelai was busy at a dinner with her parents and her grandmother, Trix. Lorelai gives Emily advice on how to deal with her difficult mother-in-law, playing to the show’s strong suit of displaying intergenerational female relationships in a complex and humorous way.

Screenshot from season 4 of “Gilmore Girls.”

4. “In the Clamor and Clangor” (4×11)

This placement might be influenced by my deep love for season four, as this particular episode doesn’t do much to move any meaningful plots of the season forward. Still, I watch it and feel so comforted. Rory confronts a boy who she thinks is spreading rumors about her, only to find out he was talking about someone else entirely. Weird to spend an entire episode on a character who never returns, but whatever. We get to see Rory being foolish while figuring out who she wants her college self to be. Luke and Lorelai team up to break the newly renovated church bells (they ring every 15 minutes???? Who can blame them?) and when Lorelai finds out Luke moved to Woodbridge with his girlfriend/ex-wife Nicole, she finally voices what has taken four seasons to voice: Lorelai cares about Luke. I could listen to Luke yell at Lorelai about snow shovels in his “why I oughta!” voice all day.

Screenshot from season 5 of “Gilmore Girls.”

3. “Woman of Questionable Morals” (5×11)

All the way back in season one, Gilmore Girls established Lorelai’s deep love for snow. Like, jolts-awake-at-night-because-she-can-smell-snow-is-coming level love. So when the first snowfall of the year comes to Stars Hollow in season five, Lorelai is overjoyed at the chance to drink coffee and watch the flurries fall at The Dragonfly Inn for the first time. But then the inn is out of coffee, the driveway is snowed in, two guests got lost snowshoeing and Lorelai’s relationship with snow gets more complicated. To cheer her up, Luke makes Lorelai an ice rink in her front yard. Talk about romance. In one of the wackier side plots of the series, the town plans a salacious Revolutionary War reenactment. Sometimes plots like these are too goofy, but to me it’s the perfect amount of antics, and (most of) the jokes land. (Kirk shows up in a dress for a classic dose of early-2000s-sitcom transphobia.) This episode gets knocked a bit for Rory’s conflict with Christopher, which I simply do not care about.

Screenshot from season 1 of “Gilmore Girls.”

2. “Forgiveness and Stuff” (1×10)

Richard and Emily host their annual Christmas dinner, but Lorelai is uninvited after a tiff with Emily. Naturally, she instead spends her evening at Luke’s, where he makes her a burger shaped like Santa Claus, complete with a mayonnaise beard, to make the night more festive. Their chemistry is off the charts, and it’s hard to believe it took them four years to finally get together. The night takes a turn when Richard has a heart attack and is rushed to the hospital, and each of the Gilmore girls goes down their own emotional spiral: Emily frantically tries to take care of Richard and fulfill her duties as wife, Rory grapples with the near loss of the grandfather she just started developing a relationship with, and Lorelai struggles with the emotional distance between her and her father. This episode is Gilmore Girls at its finest — tender and smart.

Screenshot from season 2 of “Gilmore Girls.”

1. “The Bracebridge Dinner” (2×10)

When the affluent Bracebridge group can’t make it to their scheduled stay at the Independence Inn, Lorelai and Sookie are stuck with the makings of a Renaissance-style dinner party with no guests to attend it. Enter: every single person in Stars Hollow. This isn’t just my favorite holiday episode, but one of my favorite Gilmore Girls episodes, period. The party serves as a clever way to get the entire town in one place and see character interactions you wouldn’t normally get to see, like Paris and Bootsy or Babette and Mrs. Kim. It also creates a perfect balance between townie antics and a meaningful plot for Rory, Lorelai and the grandparents. (Richard quit his job? The scandal!) And I can’t talk about this episode without giving praise to Lorelai and Rory’s Björk-snowman and the “Human Behavior” needle drop in the final scene.