Santa Beiste Is Coming To Town

Christmas is fast approaching, so a Christmas episode just before mid-season break is the most appropriate idea to come up with. It was a joyful, varied but also sad episode, since at the beginning, everyone seems to feel the Christmas spirit until several things complicate the celebration of Jesus’ birth.

Mr. Schue decides to make New Directions carol to raise money for the McKinney-Vento Homeless Children & Youth Program, since they are the ones that need it most. Thus, the Glee club finds itself in a classroom full of children complaining about how much they suck and that they would prefer studying over having to listen to them singing “We need a little Christmas”. The teacher’s shoe shell quickly makes them exit the class and come up with another way to collect money.

When Artie finds out that Brittany still believes in Santa Clause, he persuades the other Glee club members to play along, so Brittany would preserve this belief as long as possible. But when she asks a mall Santa to give Artie back his walking ability for Christmas, they have to come up with an idea that won’t give away the truth about who’s putting the presents under the Christmas tree: They ask Coach Beiste to play Santa and bring Brittany the bad news that he won’t be able to make Artie walk.

Meanwhile, Rachel still tries to win Finn back; first, by attempting to sing Merry Christmas, Darling as a present to him (which ends with him leaving the auditorium even before she started singing), then by convincing him to act like a Glee club leader and buy a new Christmas tree with her, since he loves the smell of Christmas pine and real trees. But even performing Last Christmas with him doesn’t make Finn accept Rachel’s apologies, but results in their official break-up.

Kurt and Blaine, however, are not even together yet. So far, nothing more has happened than Kurt helping Blaine rehearse a wonderful Baby, it’s cold outside, that may have brought them a bit closer to each other. At least, Kurt tells the visiting Mr. Schue that he’s in love with Blaine. Let’s just say, that this love is more likely to be reciprocated than the love Terri still feels for Will…

Sue, however, seems to suffer from withdrawal of love. Since she never got any presents for Christmas as a child, now she devises a mean plan to get all the presents this year: First, she writes her name on all the slips for the teacher’s Secret Santa so she literally bags all the presents. When Will and Beiste find a legal way to “steal” the presents back from Sue, she disguises as the Grinch and, accompanied by her faithful reindog Becky, destroys all the Christmas decorations and presents, the Glee club had collected for the homeless children in a cloak-and-handcart operation.

But the Glee kids don’t let anyone spoil Christmas for them. They try caroling again, but this time for the teachers, which not only results in the success of earning $210 with Welcome Christmas, but also in Sue regretting her evil deeds: Together with the Glee kids, she prepares a Christmas party for Will who otherwise would’ve remembered this Christmas as a candlelight dinner with his bottle of beer. Eventually, also Brittany sees her wish fulfilled, when she and Artie find the ReWalk at home, secretly brought by Santa Beiste. When the kids return to the choir room after caroling, Artie takes his first robotic steps and Quinn aptly calls it “A real Christmas miracle”.

In my opinion, the producers of Glee should be a little more cautious when it comes to creating a (funny) storyline, since I think, there are some people in the audience who still believe in Santa climbing down the chimney and bringing the presents. So, maybe, Ryan Murphy needs to concentrate more on the target group, which in this case is a pretty broad one, starting with 13-year-old kids, as the movie rating recommends. But probably also younger kids watch Glee, either because their parents don’t care or because they think their children will understand the show. The message of preserving this childhood belief as long as possible came across very well. But it’s a little strange, if you think about the fact, that maybe there are some children that are confused about Christmas now. But just to make it clear, for me nothing changes, I still liked the episode - but I don’t still believe in Santa!

Another fact that I was confused about, was the Finchel break-up: Didn’t Ryan Murphy promise us that they would be together all season?! What do you Finchel fans think about these latest developments?

Since I’m not a big fan of spoilers, I didn’t know that most songs of the Glee Christmas album would be featured in the episode, so I had heard all of these before the actual episode aired… But well, I love the songs either way, the mixture of dynamics, contemplation and joy that they convey: A Gleeful Christmas to all of you!