Played by Zooey Deschanel for seven well-loved seasons, Jessica Day might love the holidays more than any other character in television history. Thus, “New Girl” mastered the art of the holiday episode early in its run, playing on age-old tropes, and setting up ones of its own for the characters to play on as the years passed.
“New Girl,” created by Elizabeth Meriwether, ran on Fox from 2011 to 2018. Jess began the series desperate for a new housing situation after being cheated on by her long-term (and deadbeat) boyfriend. Her Craigslist-ad roommates, a group of men with an array of mind-boggling habits and worldviews, slowly become her best friends. That’s mostly because they can’t help but be charmed by her quirky and unending brand of generosity, which comes out especially in the presence of mistletoe.
Read on for a ranked list of every Christmas and Thanksgiving celebrated by Jess, Nick (Jake Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), Winston (Lamorne Morris), Coach (Damon Wayans Jr.) and Cece (Hannah Simone).
‘Last Thanksgiving’ (Season 6, Episode 7)
Peter Gallagher is one of the most delightfully bizarre recurring guest stars in “New Girl,” playing Schmidt’s formerly absent father Gavin, who makes multiple ill-advised attempts to seduce Jess. Despite his presence, “Last Thanksgiving” is lackluster compared to most of the show’s festive episodes. Due to the power of the holiday spirit Jess forces onto everyone around her, Thanksgiving and Christmas often provided the characters of “New Girl” their biggest moments of growth, but Jess herself seems to backtrack here.
At this point, Jess is dating Robby (Nelson Franklin), the least compelling of her significant boyfriends throughout the show’s run. Franklin is certainly funny in the role, but Robby and Jess have zero chemistry — which she begins to realize in this episode. She spends the day preparing to break up with him, but when Gavin makes a move, Robby gives an angry speech that makes her attracted to him again, which feels slightly contrived. They do end up breaking up later on in the season after realizing that they’re third cousins, a strange and forced way to break off her last relationship before she finds her way back to Nick, the love of her life.
‘Thanksgiving III’ (Season 3, Episode 10)
All in all, “Thanksgiving III” is a hilarious episode. After Coach makes Nick feel insecure about the state of his masculinity since he started dating Jess, he proposes to Jess that they go camping for Thanksgiving. Once everyone is already in the woods, Nick reveals that he’s neglected to pack any of the food Jess prepared so that they can instead hunt and forage. That plan obviously goes horribly, ending with Jess eating a fish that Nick “caught” — it was already dead. Poisoned, she becomes delirious, gets lost in the dark, falls into a bear trap and contracts multiple diseases.
But the episode would have worked better on a regular day rather than on Thanksgiving. It’s a bit hard to believe that someone who loves the holidays as much as Jess would agree to do anything besides a heartwarming turkey dinner.
‘Parents’ (Season 2, Episode 8)
To add to the list of strong guest stars playing loft dwellers’ parents in “New Girl” holiday episodes, Jamie Lee Curtis and Rob Reiner show up for Season 2’s Thanksgiving to play Jess’ mom, Joan, and dad, Bob. Jess pretends that she’s planned two separate dinners at the apartment since Bob and Joan are divorced, but a convenient mixup forces them to spend time together. It’s a parent trap, and weirdly, it works.
But only kind of. To Jess’ delight, after years of trying, she finally forces Bob and Joan to get into each other again, but she’s heartbroken when they tell her their makeout session in the bathroom is nothing more than that. Curtis and Reiner are hilarious, as are their interactions with Jess’ roommates — especially Nick, who momentarily falls for Joan. Plus, Rob Riggle drops in as Schmidt’s insane cousin, also named Schmidt. “Parents” is a great episode overall. But it places lower on this list just because the premise of the parent trap is a little naive, even for queen of naivete Jessica Day.
‘Thanksgiving’ (Season 1, Episode 6)
The first Thanksgiving at the loft is foundational. It’s not only our introduction to crazy holiday Jess, but it gives Jess her first love interest since her breakup in the series premiere — and therefore ignites her sexual tension with Nick that so much of the series runs on.
Jess develops a crush on Paul (Justin Long), her fellow middle-school teacher, and brings him home for Thanksgiving. He’s just a big of a nerd as she is, which means he immediately irritates everyone, but they all come around except for Nick. Jess begs Nick to be nice to Paul, and be a good wingman (one episode after Cece pointed out that Nick may be into her), but he fails to, leading to a massive fight that ends in Jess screaming, “I want to have sex with him big time! You heard me! Big time! OK? I want to take him down to Chinatown and slice him off a piece of this pumpkin pie, OK? I want to do all the things that you do in a bedroom, with him, OK? I want to do it standing up and sitting down, and half-up and half-down, and the wiggly one, and the Bear Attack, and the claws in the head, and the one the figure skaters do, and the What’s for Lunch, and the Give Me That Hat. Let’s just say that I’m good. I’m really, really good. And I don’t care what you think!”
Paul hears every word, and it’s great. (Until he discovers the neighbor’s dead body and dinner is ruined.)
“Thanksgiving” also sets off the other great love story of “New Girl”: Schmidt and Cece’s. At this point, they’re nowhere near the romantic depth they eventually reach, but Schmidt’s control issues and rage in the kitchen end up working for Cece, and she goes out of her way to piss him off for fun, one of the great pastimes of the universe of this show.
‘LAXmas' (Season 4, Episode 11)
Season 4’s Christmas episode opens with the everyone feeling hopeful about having a rare non-catastrophic holiday (rare for this group)! Schmidt and Cece are both New York-bound to see their parents, Nick and Winston are headed to Chicago to do the same, Coach has planned a solo vacation to Hawaii and Jess made a last-minute decision to go to London to meet Ryan’s parents.
But they wouldn’t named the episode after one of the most hellish places on Earth if things were going to go well. LAX is a madhouse, with countless flight delays thanks to storms over the Midwest. Jess goes into problem-solving mode, and makes contingency plans for everyone else (even managing to get first class seats for Nick and Winston), but doesn’t know how to deal when Ryan, who’s already in London, sends a picture of his family home. Or rather, mansion — he’s completely rich, and Jess hadn’t realized. She’s intimidated beyond belief, and a nutty airline employee (Billy Eichner doing what he does best) exacerbates that fear, so she lies to Ryan that her flight was canceled.
On a quick phone call with Jess, Nick realizes what happened. He and Winston have already boarded, but they sacrifice first class and grab Cece, Schmidt and Coach from where they’re waiting in the airport to convince Jess she’s good enough for Ryan.
It’s reminiscent of the No. 1 episode on this list — in fact, this episode might have ranked higher if that one hadn’t already iterated the same concept even better. But still, the way everyone rallies around Jess to repay her for all she’s done for them is heartwarming. Even if the episode ends with Jess arriving in London to find out that Ryan has flown back to L.A. hoping to find her there.
‘Thanksgiving IV' (Season 4, Episode 9)
Holidays usually get Jess flustered because of all of the pressure she puts on herself to make them perfect for everyone else, but in “Thanksgiving IV,” her freakout is about dating a boy and breaking the rules. Which is more fun!
Schmidt declares Turkey Day 2014 as “Bangsgiving,” in which each member of the friend group is assigned to bring a date for someone else. Jess is excited for the opportunity, as it’ll take her mind off of Ryan (Julian Morris), the teacher she recently kissed — which is against school rules, as she’s the principal. But Coach thinks the rules are stupid, and brings Ryan for Jess anyway.
There are hiccups: Winston’s lunch-lady date bringing up high school trauma, Coach feeling threatened by his cop date’s superhuman strength, Cece’s date not showing up until the party’s over, Schmidt’s date calling him “sexy for a Jew,” Nick drawing his own name and bringing Tran (Ralph Ahn) instead of a date, and Ryan turning Jess down because he wants more than just sex. But Winston and Coach get past their issues. And more important, Schmidt and Cece start flirting again, while Nick meets Tran’s single granddaughter Kai (Greta Lee) and Jess realizes that she’s ready for a relationship with Ryan, even though she’s scared.
This episode marks both Nick and Jess’ first times with exciting new prospects since their breakup, and this period of growth is what gets them ready to find each other again years down the line. And thankfully, there’s no need to wait years on Schmidt and Cece, who not only get back together but get engaged by the end of Season 4.
‘Santa’ (Season 2, Episode 11)
After breaking things off with Paul in Season 1 because she wasn’t ready for another relationship, Jess’s hookup buddy Sam (David Walton) becomes the first person Jess is willing to get serious with. But when she puts herself out there, he doesn’t want anything more with her. Until Christmas.
The loft group goes party hopping to get Jess’ mind off of Sam, but they run into him at one party, and then at the next. He’s desperate for a chance to tell her he made a mistake, but with her trust issues renewed, she doesn’t believe that he wants anything more than sex.
Meanwhile, Nick predictably gets intimidated by his new girlfriend Angie (Olivia Munn), and more particularly the fact that she’s a stripper, so he begins to self-sabotage and push her away. (“Nick Miller, turning lemonade into lemons since 1981,” he says to himself.)
Nick and Jess have a warm conversation, encouraging each other to be vulnerable and look truthfully at what’s scaring them. Nick isn’t afraid of Angie’s job — it’s her confidence, so he decides to embrace it with full force, giving her a lap dance for everyone to see. And Jess, upon hearing that Nick thinks she’s “the kind of girl a guy would come back for,” and after having a run-in with someone who may or may not have been real-life Santa Claus, brings the whole gang to the hospital where Sam’s at work to give him a second chance. A security guard almost stops them, since visiting hours are almost over, but an impromptu serenade (picture Jess singing “I don’t know the words) to the tune of “O Come, All Ye Faithful”) does the trick.
With “New Girl’s” whole run considered, Angie and Sam are arguably the partners Nick and Jess’ are most compatible with besides each other, and for that reason, combined with the lap dance Schmidt gives Nick, “Santa” ranks high on this list.
‘Christmas Eve Eve’ (Season 6, Episode 10)
In “Christmas Eve Eve,” Jess decides to fly Nick’s long-distance girlfriend Reagan (Megan Fox) to Los Angeles as Nick’s secret Santa gift, but the sweet gesture turns sour when Nick decides to fly to Seattle for the same reason. As Jess tries to convince him to stay without ruining the surprise, the two get into a fight where Nick yells about being frustrated that nothing he does is ever enough for her. Near tears, Jess reveals the gift, making Nick “instantly sorry.” They later forgive each other, but what they don’t discuss is when Nick aptly pointed out that Jess has been “acting weird” since his last trip to see Reagan … the first indication that, at least on a subconscious level, he’s noticing a spark between them again.
Things get bleaker for Jess at the gift exchange, when she realizes she forgot to put her own name in the drawing, and no one’s gotten her anything. (Winston, after stupidly marveling “I get one?” upon opening his first gift, actually ends up getting two.) But with an assist from Robby, Nick arranges for Darlene Love herself to perform “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” right outside of the apartment, surrounded by elves as Reagan showers everyone with snow (dropping shredded receipts from the roof).
‘The 23rd’
“The 23rd” is a perfect episode from start to finish. Positioned a third of the way through Season 1, the group has really come to love each other by this point despite their best efforts, as evidenced by the boys’ embarrassment in the cold open when Jess realizes they’re all wearing the roller skates she got them as a gift.
Justin Long is back as Paul to fulfill a classic sitcom trope, telling Jess “I love you” for the first time and just getting a “Thank you” in return, as Jess isn’t ready to say it back, having gotten out of a long relationship only a few months before. But she does care for him deeply, so she decides to wait until after the holiday to address it, and plans to keep taking it slow. But Nick assumes Jess has already told Paul she doesn’t love him and spills the beans himself in an attempt to console him. Then, when Jess finds them talking about it at Schmidt’s office Christmas party, the trio gets locked on a balcony together and Nick is forced to sit in on (and participate in) the breakup.
Nick, unable to stand the sadness on Jess’ face (and madly in love with her somewhere deep down), turns the car around as the group is driving from the party to the airport. He pisses off his mother by missing his flight home to Chicago, instead taking Jess to her favorite place: Candy Cane Lane, a wildly decorated street of houses that she thought she was going to have to miss this year. When they arrive, it’s too late at night and all the lights are off, but Nick starts screaming bloody murder to wake up the residents and get them to turn on their lights. All wanting to show up for Jess, the whole gang joins in until the street is aglow. It’s the first time in the show that Jess seems assured that she has real love and community in her life since her breakup. Everything is perfect again, even if a Candy Cane Lane resident does threaten to call the cops.
And most important, Winston’s oddly strong connection to Schmidt’s boss’ child kicks off his nannying era. What’s more fun than that?
Read More About:
ncG1vNJzZmiukae2psDYZ5qopV%2BhtrTA0milnq9dnLazuIycn6uho6m6or%2BMrZ%2BappuotKrCyKeeZqCfobalrdhmnKmho6Sxpr%2BMq5ino5WZfA%3D%3D