Gilmore Girls: Top 3 Christmas episodes to watch on Netflix this December

Make Gilmore Girls one of the shows you watch this holiday season! Here are three must-see episodes…

One of the best parts of the holiday season is binge-watching Christmas episodes of certain shows on Netflix and other streaming websites. One of the most classic series to indulge in is Gilmore Girls.

In fact, there are a total of seven episodes focusing around the tinsel season. The following are the top three when it comes to laughter, drama, and everything else we enjoy when watching this iconic show.

1. Season 2, Episode 10, “The Bracebridge Dinner”

This episode has all the makings of a Christmas classic in that almost all the residents of Stars Hollow come together for a fabulous, iconic holiday dinner based on a real tradition which has been celebrated since 1927. Originally, the Independence Inn had planned to put up a group of guests to partake in the event, but unfortunately, they get snowed in and it is a last-minute idea of Sookie and Lorelai’s to host their family and friends instead.

It is in this Gilmore Girls episode that we find out Richard has retired from the company which is not only treating him horribly but also has lead to extreme health problems. At first, his wife Emily is upset at not being included in the decision, but after discussing the matter with her daughter she comes to accept that this move was indeed best for their future.

Rory and Jess find themselves alone in a horse-drawn sleigh, and Jess ultimately points out the obvious regarding her relationship with Dean: they have little to nothing in common, and therefore their union does not make a whole lot of sense.

Rory, although she originally attempts to deny this fact, cannot help but have her already-budding feelings for the new-in-town bad boy deepen, something that Dean notices when everyone gets ready to leave the next morning and he spots the two sharing a romantic look. After this point, Dean becomes increasingly more suspicious of the pair’s friendship, with this matter only worsening until he ultimately gives up on the idea of him and Rory being together, dumping her at a town event in front of everybody in the next season.

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Season 7, Episode 11, “Santa’s Secret Stuff”

This is the last Christmas-themed episode we see before Gilmore Girls wraps up for good. Although it technically takes place after the holidays, due to Rory having spent them in London with boyfriend Logan, she and her mother have waited to spend Christmas together.

Lorelai’s new husband Christopher is going out of his way to make sure that their first time celebrating Santa as a family is as perfect as can be, but Lorelai is none too keen on engaging in traditions other than what she and Rory have shared over the years. In fact, her reluctance to let Christopher in on their ways of life is just one of many clues over Season 7 that she truly is not all-in when it comes to her nuptials.

The fact that she has written a character reference for her ex-fiance Luke in order for him to get custody of his teenage daughter April, and has failed to inform her husband of this favor, has made it quite clear that she still has feelings for her ex. At the end of the episode, she goes to the mailbox to send off the character reference as Rory, Christopher, and her step-daughter Gigi are busy making cranberry and popcorn necklaces.

As she looks at the family she once day-dreamed about constantly, it is obvious that Lorelai is having second thoughts and knows that it was never truly right. Christopher ends up finding her copy of the document, and this ultimately leads to their divorce as he can no longer pretend that he is the man she really wants. Despite Lorelai’s initial insistence that he is wrong, she ends up admitting that she cannot force herself to feel for him what she clearly never will.

Season 1, Episode 10, “Forgiveness and Stuff”

The first Christmas-based episode of the series that fans ever see is not exactly focused around holiday cheer. It is probably one of the most drama-filled of the entire seven-year run. Gilmore family conflict has completely run amok, what with Rory having been caught sleeping in the town’s dance studio with new boyfriend Dean after the two attend a dance together. Although the matter is completely innocent as the couple did not mean to fall asleep, being found together at five in the morning does not bode well with her mother, and the two get into quite the disagreement.

Grandmother Emily happens to be in the house when Rory is discovered to be missing, with her and Lorelai exchanging extremely heated remarks regarding the 16-year-old’s actions as well as Lorelai’s parenting skills. Emily ends up being sent out of the house by her daughter, and ultimately uninvited from the family’s annual Christmas dinner.

Lorelai finds herself extremely upset over this, with diner owner Luke making her a somewhat unappetizing but still adorable Santa burger. However, the inn owner does not have long to express her gratitude. She immediately gets an extremely alarming phone call informing her that her father has had a heart attack and is now in the hospital.

Luke shuts down the diner and drives her to the medical facility, but Lorelai keeps coming up with excuses to not go into the room where her father lays. When she eventually gives in, tears come to her eyes as she stands in the doorway and Richard awakens to see his daughter almost having a breakdown at his condition.

He also begins to cry, but the rest of the family enters the room before the two can truly be honest with each other. It is this scene that is one of the most pivotal throughout the Gilmore Girls series, as it shows fans that despite Lorelai’s tough exterior and insistence that she does not need her parents or anyone else in her life, deep down she still has an extremely close attachment to them.

Would you agree that these three are the best Gilmore Girls episodes to watch over the Christmas season? Which ones do you like best? Sound off with other fans below!

Gilmore Girls can be streamed on Netflix.