25 best Christmas TV episodes to watch this holiday season

Hey Arnold! – “Arnold’s Christmas”

Hey Arnold! doesn’t get nearly enough credit as some other cartoons do, but it really was a great show. The 1996 Christmas episode “Arnold’s Christmas” remains fantastic.

School is out for Arnold and his friends and everyone is getting excited for Christmas. At the boarding house where Arnold lives, all the residents are doing a Secret Santa. Arnold draws Mr. Hyunh, but has no idea what to get him for Christmas. Normally around the holidays, Mr. Hyunh gets sad and forlorn, and Arnold wants to make him feel a little happier.

To get an idea of what to get Mr. Hyunh for Christmas, Arnold decides to pay him a visit and awkwardly tries to ask him what he wants, without revealing himself as his Secret Santa. Mr. Hyunh then tells Arnold about the one thing he wants more than anything, which is to be reunited with his long-lost daughter.

Twenty years before, Mr. Hyunh was trying to escape his small village in South Vietnam as the war in the North got closer to his village. He wanted to give his daughter a better life in America, but because of all the refugees fleeing, the U.S. soldiers could only make room for one passenger on the helicopter, so Mr. Hyunh made the decision to send his baby all alone with the soldier.

It took Mr. Hyunh 20 years to finally get to America but when he got to the specific city the soldier told him his daughter would be taken to, he couldn’t find her. Arnold and Gerald go on a mission to locate Mai, his daughter, by going through government records, but the city archivist won’t let them, until they agree to do all his Christmas shopping for him. Since there’s one item they can’t find anywhere, a pair of sought after boots, he refuses to help the boys in their search for Mai.

Helga sees that Arnold is depressed, and she still doesn’t know what to get him for Christmas. When her mom notices how sad she looks, she allows Helga to open one gift, and what do you know? It’s the boots she was dying for, the same boots Mr. Bailey wanted. She decides to give the boots to Mr. Bailey in exchange for help tracking down Mai, to prove to Arnold that miracles do exist.

Arnold tries to explain to Mr. Hyunh what he did to try and get his daughter back, but then the bell rings, and it’s Mai. After 20 long years, father and daughter are reunited once again, all thanks to Arnold and his special Christmas Angel (whom he doesn’t know is really Helga).  Most of the holiday specials on this list show more humor and dysfunction, but this one really tugs at the heartstrings.