When the party planning committee forgets to plan the annual Christmas party, Dwight gets everyone to celebrate with a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas. Darryl fears that Jim has forgotten to include him in the new job in Philadelphia. Pete teaches Erin about his favorite movie Die Hard. Toby discusses the Scranton Strangler trial with Nellie.
Tropes in this episode:
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Dwight pretends to not even care that Jim has to abandon his Christmas party in order to catch a bus to Philadelphia, but is clearly downtrodden and angrily cancels the festivies afterwards, spending the rest of the time sulking. Until Jim suddenly returns, to which he then runs over and gives Jim a tight hug (beating Pam to the punch) and enthusiastically states that they can resume the rest of the traditions now.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Darryl helps himself to the spiked punch bowl (as in, he takes the entire bowl with him to his office) after feeling spurned when Jim leaves for Philadelphia having seemingly forgotten to invite Darryl to join him in his new job.
- In Vino Veritas: After Darryl believes that Jim has forgotten to include him in his new job in Philadelphia, he helps himself to the spiked punch bowl and begins sharing his drunken thoughts, including admitting Meredith is kind of cute and deciding he's going to kick Jim's ass when he gets back. When Jim does indeed come back, Darryl marches in to confront him... only for Jim to excitedly tell him he talked the guys at his sports marketing job into letting Darryl apply, leading Darryl to bemusedly thank him, and then proceed to pass out all over the party table.
- "No. Just… No" Reaction: Stanley has this upon finding out that Dwight's Belsnickel character has a sidekick named Zwarte Piet who's depicted as a minstrel in blackface.
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Everyone is dubious of Dwight's alleged Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas traditions including his dressing up as the character Belsnickel, until Oscar reports after looking it up, much to his own surprise, that Belsnickel is indeed a real holiday character.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The subplot of Darryl's increasing drunken anger and desire for vengeance on Jim naturally fizzles out when it turns out that Jim didn't forget about Darryl and has in fact arranged a job interview for him at his new company.
- Shout-Out:
- While sitting in his office drunk, Darryl notes that he thinks Meredith's kind of cute and has a sort of Emma Stone vibe going on.
- Pete is challenged to recite the entire script from his favorite movie Die Hard, and he and Erin later decide to just watch the movie together.
- "Shut Up" Kiss: Toby and Nellie share a kiss at the end of the episode.
