- Release Date: December 21, 2020
Stan takes the family to a shopping mall to have a perfect Christmas. But when the tree lighting ceremony ends in disaster, Stan gets stuck in a time loop and must find a way to save his family.
Tropes:
- Bears Are Bad News: An actual polar bear is brought to Santa's village at the mall, terrifying children, and it kills Roger in multiple loops.
- Christmas Episode: The first one since "Santa, Schmanta" in Season 15.
- Didn't Think This Through: While running at super-speed to cut the power to the mall, Stan collects his hot chocolate and tries to drink it, only to instantly burn himself and crash into a store.
- Double Take: On the last loops, Stan joins Francine in getting piercings and says that he's enjoying being with her before "they're consumed by a bone-melting tsunami of fire." Francine is touched by this, before realizing what he just said and then they're killed by the fire.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: While it involves a hacker humiliating Steve by posting a video of him masturbating, Stan eventually manages to end the time loop by averting the disaster.
- Face Death with Dignity: With only three loops left, Stan gives up on trying to prevent the disaster and decides to spend his last moments with Francine, Hayley, and Steve.
- Fingore: On one loop, Stan slides his way across the ice rink, but when he emerges, his fingers were all sliced off by ice skaters.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: Stan only has five minutes in his loop, and near the end of the episode, he finds that he had a finite number of loops to begin with. It's finally broken when he goes to spend time with Steve, only to find that he was trying to pay off a hacker who took a video of him masturbating. The hacker thinks Steve ignored his demand to come alone and broadcasts the footage, which appalls everyone at the mall and gets the tree lighting ceremony canceled.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: On one loop, Stan manages to cut power to the mall. However, one of the high-tension wires on the tree snaps and slices everyone in the crowd.
- Hero of Another Story: The janitor and a kiosk piercing specialist are both offhandedly mentioned to be going through their own supernatural adventures involving separate body swaps.
- Hope Spot: Stan spends much of the episode trying to avert the disaster by cutting power to the mall and finally succeeds. But then an even more gruesome disaster occurs.
- I'm Standing Right Here: After the initial disaster, Stan laments that Hayley never married and found happiness...even though Jeff is standing right next to him and doing his best to console him.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Stan tries to get help from the janitor by repeating some of the facts he learned about the latter's personal life, thereby revealing he's in a time loop, but is just mistaken for sleeping with the janitor's wife.
- Skewed Priorities: Stan's first few loops has him trying to locate the family, but he berates them for not doing the Christmas chores he asked them to do.
- Time Skip: After the initial disaster, a month passes with Stan wallowing in sorrow before he gets the magic fortune cookie and is sent back.
- You Have to Believe Me!:
- Subverted. After accidentally getting the janitor to think he's sleeping with his wife, Stan starts the next loop by telling him that he's in a time loop, and the janitor immediately believes him and agrees to help.
- On another loop, Stan tells Vic Mancuso not to light the tree, only to be shot by multiple snipers in response.
- You Were Trying Too Hard: Stan spends dozens of time loops trying to avert a disaster and failing every time, despite going through every possible solution he can think of. When he realises that he has only three time loops left, he gives up trying to avert the disaster and spends the time he has left with his family, and this is what ends up averting the disaster.
