It's Christmas at Dunder Mifflin and the whole office is planning a party. Michael, the only one who received a Christmas bonus, buys an iPod for his Secret Santa recipient. This leads to a game of White Elephant/Yankee Swap, and a lot of hurt feelings. To make up for it, Michael defies company rules and buys alcohol for the party.
Air date: December 6, 2005.
Tropes
- The Alcoholic: Meredith says this is her last hurrah, because she's not going to drink anymore...during the week.
- Aborted Declaration of Love: Jim slips a note into the teapot he plans to give to Pam for her present, presumably declaring his love for her. After he finally prepares to give it to her, he covertly takes out the note and slips it into his pocket, deciding he's still not ready to reveal his feelings to her.
- Bad Boss: Of the Jerkass variety; Michael displays some of his cruellest, most callous behaviour in this episode. Not only did he accept a large bonus for firing an employee, he then spends part of that bonus on an overblown Secret Santa gift, and when he receives a heartfelt gift from Phyllis that is not of similar monetary value to his own gift he initiates a game of Yankee Swap (in which everyone has the chance to steal another person's gift). Said game goes horribly wrong with almost everyone snatching up the iPod Michael gifted to Ryan and Michael desperately trying to pawn off Phyllis' oven mitt. When Meredith finally does take the mitt from him, he mocks her. It ends with almost everyone unhappy and Phyllis storming off upset.
- Break the Haughty: Angela does not have a good time at the Christmas party, as all her careful plans are gradually undone and she is clearly driven to jealousy after witnessing Dwight make out with a drunken Kelly. She ends up outside, behind the building, screaming and stomping Christmas tree decorations into the snow.
- Brotherhood of Funny Hats: Angela likes Anne Geddes -style posters of babies dressed as adults. Toby buys her a poster of two babies wearing fedoras and playing instruments.Toby: I felt really weird, buying that.
- Call-Back:
- Michael got a bonus from corporate for firing Devon in "Halloween".
- One to the preceding episode "Email Surveillance"—Jim includes a copy of his high school yearbook photo, which Pam was amused by, in the teapot.
- Can't Hold His Liquor: Todd Packer, despite showing up last, is the first to pass out.
- Captain Obvious: Lampshaded when Ryan opens up his Yankee Swap gift and finds a pink floral nameplate that says "Kelly".Stanley: That was meant for Kelly.
Ryan: Yeah, I figured. - Chekhov's Gun: Jim’s card to Pam, in which he supposedly told her that he loved her and which he stashed in her present. He eventually retrieves it when she ends up with the present again. He will not give it to her until several seasons later.
- Christmas Episode: The first of several.
- Colorblind Casting: Darryl offers to play Santa, but Michael rejects it, apparently on the grounds that a black Santa would be inauthentic (which gives Michael yet another Innocent Bigot moment).
- Dramatically Missing the Point: After receiving his gift from Phyllis, Michael reveals in a talking head that he believes the monetary value of a gift reflects the giver's feelings towards the receiver. It's clearly established, however, that the Secret Santa had a monetary limit ($20) which everyone else abided by, meaning that any gift he received would have been cheap. His superficiality, petulance and ingratitude ends up spoiling the gift exchange and putting everyone in a bad mood.
- A Gift for Themselves: Kevin draws his own name in Secret Santa and chooses not to tell anyone, instead getting himself the gift of a footbath. Later, after the office gift exchange devolves into a "White Elephant/Yankee Swap" situation, he passes up the best gift (the iPod) in order to take back the footbath.
- Hypocrite: Michael makes a big deal about generosity and being swept up in the Christmas spirit about spending a lot on his gift for Ryan,. However, he reacts petulantly with the gift he receives and nags everyone into turning it into a Yankee Swap, clearly demonstrating that he was really just trying to impress everyone with his generosity and only wants something cool for himself without caring about anyone else's thoughts or feelings. When everyone turns on him at the end, he also tries to weasel out of it by acting like Yankee Swap was so much more successful despite the fact that everyone is upset and even he is clearly just as unhappy with his second gift.
- Insistent Terminology: Bob Vance...Vance Refrigeration.
- Jerkass: Between his accepting of a financial bonus for firing an employee, his superficial belief that monetary value is the only measuring worth of a Christmas gift, his childish petulance and ingratitude over the gifts he receives, his hypocritical attempt make himself look generous and benevolent by giving Ryan an excessively expensive gift, and his sabotaging of the whole gift exchange (thus ruining other people's hard work and considerate attempts at gifts) purely to get something better, and his either clueless or disingenuous lack of understanding why Phyllis might be upset despite spending the whole evening rubbishing the gift she made him, Michael does not come out of this episode looking particularly good.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The only reason Michael proposes the Yankee Swap is because he is unimpressed with Phyllis's gift of an oven mitt and wants to grab something better. The gift he eventually ends up with is... a packet of paintball pellets and a gift token for two free paintball lessons with Dwight, which he is equally unimpressed by.
- Metaphorgotten: Dwight's attempt at a clever simile.Dwight: Yankee Swap is like Machiavelli meets...(he struggles to come up with a good idea)...Christmas.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Pam is clearly a bit guilty after she realises that her choice of the iPod over Jim's teapot during her turn in the Yankee Swap has hurt Jim's feelings.
- Noodle Incident: Jim fills Pam's teapot with in-jokes, including a pencil.
- Product Placement: The iPod, as part of a cross-promotion between the show and Apple. The other half was that episodes of The Office were made available for download on iTunes in conjunction with the release of the video iPod, with "Christmas Party" heavily promoted during the 2005 holiday season.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: As tension mounts during Yankee Swap, several employees finally call Michael out specifically on ruining the personalized nature of the presents, violating the $20 limit, and selfishly starting the game only because he hated the oven mitt Phyllis gave him.
- Serious Business: Party planning, for Angela. Michael's decision to spontaneously change the gift exchange from Secret Santa to Yankee Swap is enough to get her to burst into tears.
- Shout-Out: Jim attempts to trade the shamrock keychain to Dwight for the teapot. Dwight replies with "'A real man makes his own luck.' Billy Zane. Titanic."
- Toplessness from the Back: When Meredith flashes Michael, her back is to the camera.
- Ungrateful Bastard:
- Michael is hardly able to hide his disappointment at his gift from Phyllis (a handmade oven glove), and thus proposes a "Yankee Swap" in hopes of getting something better. His superficiality and ingratitude end up gradually ruining the entire gift exchange.
- Downplayed, since she's not exactly ungrateful, but Jim is clearly rather hurt when Pam elects not to take back the teapot that he thoughtfully gave her and instead go for the iPod herself, implying that she wasn't that pleased with it. Ultimately averted in that she ends us swapping the iPod for the teapot and is delighted to find the stuff Jim stashed inside it.
