On Christmas Eve, Dr Jasper Parkway (Steve Pemberton) arrives in a church for a night of what reverend Dick Wilson (Simon Callow) informs him is now termed "champing." However, the church has been double-booked by Pierce (Reece Shearsmith) and Posy (Shobna Gulati).
With wearing patience at Pierce and Posy's obtrusive merriment, Dr Parkway sets to work on his charcoal engravings. Over a bottle of Bristol Cream, Dick then tells the "champers" of the church's reputation to hold Saint Nicholas's jawbone - and of a Christmas Eve encounter with a red-cloaked figure with no jaw...
Tropes:
- Accidental Suicide: Dr Parkway accidentally hangs himself in the belfry.
- Agent Scully: Dr Parkway disdains Dick's account of a spectral St Nicholas.
- Alliterative Family: Posy, Pierce and their stillborn baby-girl Paisley.
- Answers to the Name of God: Posy screams "Oh, my Lord!" when unexpectedly discovering Dr Parkway in the church. The latter responds with "Not quite, I'm afraid".
- Ask a Stupid Question...: When the Evil Phone starts ringing, Posy asks what it was. Pierce jokingly answers "Must be one of them new-fangled machines that let you talk to each other through the air."
- Bad Samaritan: The butcher in the first story, lures the three boys into his home only to slit their throats.
- Coordinated Clothes: Posy and Pierce both wear the same kind of clothing which adds to their quirkiness.
- Creepy Cathedral: The setting of this episode is a haunted church.
- Curse Cut Short: Posy interrupts Pierce before he can finish "Grinch's cock".
- Dark Is Not Evil: While Dick got quite a fright from the jaw-less spectral St Nicholas, he recalls the figure to have had kind, sad eyes.
- Dismantled MacGuffin: Dr Parkway has to overlay three different pencil-rubbed imprints in order to reveal the secret hiding place of St Nicholas' jawbone.
- Evil Phone: There is a suspenseful moment of a phone at the church suddenly ringing. Turns out no one was on the other end.
- Flashback-Montage Realization: In the belfry, Dr Parkway finally starts piecing together the different clues hinting at his pending doom which are presented as flashbacks to foreshadowing events.
- Foreshadowing: Reflected in a Christmas tree bauble, Dr Parkway sees a red-cloaked and hooded figure - whom, to scare off Pierce and Posy, he later dresses up as. Just as Posy's vision of her own weeping mother foretold Posy's miscarriage, the red-cloaked spectre is a glimpse of Dr Parkway's hoax - which is followed, in the belfry, by his accidental self-hanging.
- Friend to All Children: To Pierce and Posy, Dr Parkway recalls St Nicholas, "Patron Saint and protector of children."
- Ghost Story: Dick recalls one Christmas Eve, as he prepared to lock the church for the night, an encounter with a red-cloaked, hooded, elderly man with a missing jaw.
- Go to the Euphemism: Mr Wilson mentions that he was just "draining his kidney" when arriving late for his appointment with Dr Parkway.
- Grave Robbing: Dr Parkway is after the jawbone of St Nicholas.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: Posy miscarried on Christmas, as reflected by she and Pierce still reflecting on the anniversary on Christmas Eve.
- Inside Job: To Dick, Dr Parkway claims, as a present from his late wife, to have been booked a night in the church. He then tells Pierce and Posy to have done so in commemoration of his late mother. Both seem to be cover stories; he's searching for the reputedly church-entombed jawbone of St Nicholas.
- It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: When Dr Parkway arrives in the beginning, it's dark and a snowstorm is raging outside the church. The perfect setting for a horror story.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Pierce mentions that telling a ghost story for Christmas is perfect. That's what the creators of this episode thought as well.
- Losing a Shoe in the Struggle: Dr Parkway loses a shoe while hanging himself.
- Manchild: Lampshaded. When Pierce notes that he loved Christmas as a kid, his wife Posy retorts that he still is a kid.
- Orange/Blue Contrast: The color palette is split between warm orange and golden colors for the inside of the lit-up church and bluish colors for the dark and cold places like the belfry.
- Revealing Reflection: Dr Parkway notices a figure rushing by in the background as reflected in one of the baubles of the Christmas tree.
- Rule of Three: The episode contains three narrated ghost stories which almost makes it a Vignette Episode: The story about St Nicholas reviving three boys told by Dr Parkway, the one where Mr Wilson encounters a ghost and the one where Posy saw the ghost of her mother.
- Sad Clown: Pierce, for all his irreverent witticisms, is observing the eighteenth anniversary of a miscarriage.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: To scare off Pierce and Posy, Dr Parkway dresses up in a hooded red cloak, with a black stocking over his face.
- Screaming Woman: Posy screams when she spots the offputting, mummy-like figure of St Nicholas.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In the early hours, when a red-cloaked figure stalks through the darkened church, Pierce and Posy leg it.
- The Secret of Long Pork Pies: The butcher in Dr Parkway's story intended to sell the boys' flesh as ham to the nearby villagers.
- Shout-Out:
- Posy apparently calls pickles used for Christmas tree decoration "the Grinch's cock".
- Pierce compares Dr Parkway's profession to Indiana Jones and The Da Vinci Code.
- The statue of St Nicholas's beard reminds Posy of Paul Hollywood's.
- On Dr Parkway's introduction of St Nicholas...Pierce: What's his Origin Story?Posy: It's not X-Men, Pierce.Dr Parkway: Actually, St Nick was an "Avenger", in his own way...
- Surrounded by Idiots: Dr Parkway, who's searching for the legendary jawbone of St Nicholas, cannot be bothered with Pierce and Posy's merriment.
- There Is Only One Bed: Dr Parkway points out that there was only one bed set out at the church which he hoped would make the other couple leave but they turn out to be equipped with sleeping bags.
- Tragic Stillbirth: Pierce and Posy are observing the eighteenth anniversary of a miscarriage.
- Window Love: Posy recalls the foreboding scene of her mother touching the glass this way with her hand while her makeup was running down her face.
