25 best Christmas TV episodes to watch this holiday season

Friends – “The One With The Holiday Armadillo”

Friends might be best known for its amazing Thanksgiving episodes every year, but throughout their ten seasons, obviously they had some amazing Christmas episodes too. We love and cherish every Friends holiday special, or really any episode that brought the whole gang together for some festive fun, but nothing can compare to the ridiculously funny and memorable season 7 episode, “The One With The Holiday Armadillo.”

On this episode, everyone in the gang is doing their own thing. Phoebe is worried that Rachel is too comfortable living with Joey and won’t want to move back into their apartment when the renovations are done, so she buys gifts for Joey that will drive her out (like drums and a tarantula). Monica and Chandler might be late for a show if they can’t get seated at a restaurant quick enough, but Chandler can’t master the “sly tipping” with the maitre d’. But for probably the only time in the entire series, the character we really want to focus on this episode is Ross.

Ross is struggling to get his son, Ben (played by an adorably young Cole and Dylan Sprouse), interested in Hanukkah the same way he loves Christmas. For those fans who don’t know, Ross and Monica are Jewish, but they never really seem to be that invested in their culture. Ross wants to make sure his son knows about both sides of his culture, so he has the idea to dress up like Santa and tell Ben about the history of Hanukkah.

Or at least, that was the original plan, but since it was so close to Christmas, Ross can’t find any Santa costumes in the entire city, so he comes up with Plan B: the Holiday Armadillo. He dresses up like a giant armadillo and says he’s Santa’s half-Jewish friend who celebrates Hanukkah. Ben looks excited to learn about the festival of lights with the Holiday Armadillo, until Chandler bursts in dressed like Santa.

Even though Ross is discouraged by Ben being more interested in Santa, Chandler sticks around to learn about Hanukkah too. In the end, Ben learns a valuable learn about the history of the holiday and the whole gang come together to light the menorah. Oh, and Joey is randomly dressed like Santa, because of course he is.