A festive ranking of all the Friends Christmas episodes

Friends ran for about a billion episodes, so, naturally during that time it churned out a fair few holiday episodes. Halloween, Thanksgiving and OF COURSE, Christmas. Here’s a quick little festive ranking of all the Friends Christmas episodes, ranked definitively from worst to best.

8. The One With Christmas in Tulsa

Chandler quits his job in Tulsa to come back and celebrate with the rest of the gang in NYC. Takes last place because it’s one of those annoying flashback episodes with clips from past eps. Hated when the show did that, but I guess at the time it wasn’t easy for people to rewatch the show at will like we can now.

7. The One With the Creepy Holiday Card

This is the episode where Ross gets freaked out because he’s dating Mona early on and she wants to send out a Christmas card with them both on. I always imagined it to look like the classic horror image of Tony and Cherie Blair’s Christmas card. elsewhere, Chandler’s swerving off his boss and pregnant Rachel is cracking on with hormone stress. Not the most memorable outing.

6. The One With Phoebe’s Dad

Season two brought the show the first ever Christmas episode! Phoebe tries to connect with her dad, Ross and Rachel have a fight and Monica tries to replace tipping with cookies. Best bit goes to Joey and Chandler who forget to get everyone gifts so they buy the gang’s Christmas presents from a gas station.

5. The One With the Inappropriate Sister

The lads are all living together, and it’s going down AWFUL. Monica and Chandler are sneaking about after sleeping together in London and beginning their secret relationship. Rachel’s dating Danny and he’s weirdly close with his sister. A decent ep coming middle of the ranked rundown of Friends Christmas episodes because it just doesn’t feel that Christmassy!

4. The One Where Rachel Quits

We finally say goodbye to Rachel working at Central Perk here. This episode is great – we see Phoebe being heartbroken over old Christmas trees going in the wood chipper but best of all is the Ross saga with the Girl Scout and her cookies. Gold.

3. The One With The Girl From Poughkeepsie

Literally giving this episode third place purely for the iconic plot of Phoebe trying to write the rhyming Christmas song, that resulted in this legendary bop.

2. The One With The Holiday Armadillo

This one’s a stone-cold CLASSIC. Ross dresses up as the Holiday Armadillo to teach Ben about Hannukah, but he’s upstaged by Chandler dressing up as Santa. Much educational festive rivalry ensues.

1. The One With The Routine

Yep, this is the one. God tier. Mistakenly thought of as a New Years episode because Joey, Ross, Monica and Janine go off to film for Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve early ready for it to be shown on telly on NYE. Chandler, Phoebe and Rachel however HUNT for the Christmas presents Monica’s hidden in the apartment. How can an episode that features Ross and Monica’s legendary routine not be number one? Come on now.

RIP Matthew Perry – 1969-2023.

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