Come join Dunder Mifflin for a holiday celebration like no other with “The Office: Complete Christmas Collection!”
Today, audiences have soured on the very thing “The Office” does best. Its notorious cringe humor eventually gave way to more than wince-inducing laughs, but the legion of avid fans binging the show on Netflix certainly didn’t help. Now, here we are in a more balanced ecosystem with the lifespan of “The Office” laid out in front of us, and I’m here to tell you: despite the necessary amount of wincing, “The Office” is still one of the only shows to so perfectly encapsulate the American life spread throughout the 2000s and 2010s to great effect, and its Christmas specials give an unmitigated look at what makes the show so fun sometimes.
It’s the odd obsession with workplace families that drives shows like these. A peek under the hood at the messed-up feelings and validation people get from their work environments shows more toxic emotions than many are willing to admit. While it’s fair to say professional environments have returned to being more ‘professional,’ these feuds, romances, and office breakups are still taking center stage in our everyday lives.
Surprisingly, for a show about everyday life, the Christmas Specials of “The Office” manage to have its cake and eat it too. In the “Yankee Swap” episode where Michael goes off the deep end, and Jim tries to flirt with Pam, there’s some beating heart at the center of this that it never loses sight of. In “A Benihana Christmas,” the power triad of Andy, Dwight, and Michael take center stage as they try to help Michael cope with a breakup. Arguably, it’s third or fourth most racist joke happens in this episode, but the joke’s on Michael. Remember: the show always provides context and doles out punishment often to characters for behaving way out of line. “Moroccan Christmas” never hits harder than seeing a party-planning coup. Who invests this much time, energy, and emotion into planning their office Christmas party?
The follies and foibles of every character come in and out of focus throughout the show, even in their feel-slightly-okay holiday episodes. Nobody’s perfect, and the way the show handles serious subjects as seriously as its cast will let it provide just as much comedy as everything going on awry. Michael’s proposed intervention for Meredith never felt more painful. Is the show painful to watch sometimes? Sure. That’s the point. We can be some of the most pain-inducing cringey characters in our own lives, and it takes somebody else’s perspective to show us that. At least the show takes pains to redeem its characters through small acts, and sometimes, I’d argue, regular life doesn’t even have those. So embrace “The Office”’s sometimes-cringe comedy and admit to yourself those Christmas specials are more sentimental than you remember. It’s Christmas. Just enjoy yourself!
Now available on Blu-ray™ and DVD
