Recap / Sanders Sides S 2 E 4 The Sanders Sides 12 Days Of Christmas

It's Christmas, and Roman and Patton feel in the mood to do a video. Logan suggests that, given the time of the season it is, he should do something special. Roman and Patton reveal what they've been working on: they've been making ugly sweaters for all of the Sides. Then they all join in to perform a Christmas carol, their own version of 12 Days of Christmas where they'll remember everything they did together for the past previous year.

Release date: December 24, 2017

WARNING: Untagged spoilers ahead. Read at your own risk.

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Tropes

• Breather Episode: This light and heartwarming episode appears in-between two Wham Episodes, "Moving On Part 2" and "Can Lying Be Good?"
• Callbacks: The song is full of references to all of the previous episodes of the series. They are as follow:
  • "An emo who's now our best friend" is a reference to Virgil joining the other Sanders Sides at the end of "Accepting Anxiety Part 2".
  • "Two two-part vids" are the two episodes in two parts until then, "Accepting Anxiety" and "Moving On".
  • "Three small dogs" are the three little dogs that appeared at the end of "Moving On Part 2".
  • "Four make-overs" refers to the change of costumes that happened at the end of "Fitting In".
  • "Five name reveals" refers to the moments the Sanders Sides revealed their real names, oddly including Thomas when he introduced himself at the beginning of the series.
  • "Seven slights at Virgil" refers to the different nicknames Roman has called Virgil on past episodes.
  • "Nine Patton punch lines" refers to the number of dad jokes thrown by Patton on past episodes.
  • "Ten tie adjustments" refers to all of the times Logan adjusts his tie on past episodes.
  • "Eleven lit vocab cards": refers to the vocab cards Logan has used on past episodes.
  • "Twelve mushy moments": is a reference to Patton's mushy vision when starting a project as he calls it in "Losing My Motivation".
  • "Five Crofter's Jams" refers to Logan's excitement over "Crofter's" that we knew about in "Fitting In".
  • "Five ruined kid films": is a reference to mentioning dark and misleading messages of Disney movies in "The Dark Side of Disney".
  • "Five second cookies" is a reference to "Sanders Sides Q&A", where Patton said he ate "a second cookie" when he felt "dangerous".
  • "Eleven fire slang words": Logan says this while dabbing, which is a reference to "Growing Up", where he also dabbed.
  • Logan rapping "two two-part vids" is a reference to him rapping in "Am I Original?"
  • One of the times Virgil refuses to sing, he says "I'd really just duck out", and Patton answers "Quack!". In "Accepting Anxiety Part 2", Virgil explains that he decided to quit his job as Thomas' anxiety by saying "I decided to duck out" and Patton equally answered "Quack!".
• Christmas Episode: Thomas and the Sides celebrate the season with a Christmas song and wearing ugly sweaters.
• Christmas Carolers: The Sides perform the song 12 days of Christmas emulating a traditional group of carolers.
• Creepy Good: Virgil misinterprets Roman's Christmas carol as A Christmas Carol, being thrilled to play the fear-inducing Ghost of Christmas Future.
• Don't Explain the Joke: Discussed. Logan calls Roman a 'malodorous cent(scent)urion. No one gets it, and he proceeds to explain his wordplay. Virgil then discusses the trope.
  Virgil: Logan, buddy, um... an insult doesn't really have that punch when you have to explain it afterwards...
• Foreshadowing: There's a line Roman tells that foreshadows that someone else had had a momentary influence on him for a second, someone we would know a year and a half later, in a later episode.
  Roman: May visions of sugar plums dance in your head, and hopefully not visions of your naked Aunt Patty... eugh!
  Thomas: [sarcastic] Okay, Roman, thanks for that unpleasant side comment!
  Roman: Yeah, sorry, I don't know where that came from.
• Friendship Song: The "12 Days of Christmas" song largely talks about things all the Sanders Sides did together and wraps it all glorifying the incorporation of Virgil into the group as a friend.
• The Grinch: Virgil doesn't enjoy Christmas at all: he asks to go back to his room after they give him the ugly sweater (even though he likes it), refuses to sing his line of the Christmas song up until the very end, and then he delivers this line after the song properly ends:
  Virgil: Great, I feel the spirit of Christmas welling up inside me... or maybe that's vomit.
• Homemade Sweater from Hell: Subverted. The Sides wear "ugly sweaters" made by Roman and Patton. However, all the Sides end up liking them and Thomas shows disappointment over not being able to get a sweater for himself too.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Virgil shows his love for spooky, gory things. When discussing A Christmas Carol, he gives a genuine grin at the idea of playing the Ghost of Christmas Future.
• The Oner: The main song sequence is roughly three and a half minutes long. Deserves special mention because it is actually four such takes, composited together into near-seamlessness.
• Secret Santa: In the end card, the Sides do the Secret Santa and share presents with each other: Roman gives Logan a Sherlock Holmes script with Logan replacing Watson, Logan gives Virgil a gift card so he can get some audiobooks to calm himself in moments of stress, Patton gives Roman a tupperware full of pasta he made with love and cumin, and Virgil gives Patton a card he wrote for him where he calls him his best friend.
• True Meaning of Christmas: Thomas gives a speech giving his interpretation of what he thought Roman's phrase, "there's no winning on Christmas", actually meant, that there's no winning because it's the season of giving, not of putting yourself before others. Roman's face shows he didn't mean anything as beautiful as what Thomas came up with, but the speech has built up so many heartwarming feelings in all of the Sides that he decides not to call them out of his mistake.