Our take
The defining Friends holiday episode, and one of the rare sitcom specials to give Hanukkah and Christmas the same room. A father's improvised costume escalates into a crowded living room of festive figures, and the farce lands on something genuinely sweet. David Schwimmer is wonderful inside the armadillo, Chandler's Santa is the perfect spoiler, and Joey's superhero entrance tops it off.
What happens
Ross has his son, Ben, for the holidays and wants to teach him about Hanukkah and his Jewish heritage, but Ben only has eyes for Christmas and Santa. Determined to win him round, Ross tries to hire a Santa suit, only to find every one in the city has gone. He rents the only costume left and arrives as the Holiday Armadillo, a self-declared friend of Santa, to explain the Festival of Lights. Just as Ben starts to listen, Chandler turns up in a Santa suit to help, upstaging the armadillo completely, and Joey, keen not to miss out, arrives dressed as Superman. In the end the armadillo does get to tell Ben about Hanukkah. Elsewhere, Phoebe brings in her late mother's skull-shaped Christmas sweet dish, and, with Rachel happily settled at Joey's, the friends try to make his flat less appealing, first with a drum kit and then with a tarantula that scares Joey far more than her. Phoebe and Rachel's own apartment, when they visit it, has been rebuilt with only one bedroom.
Can the kids watch it?
Warm and silly, with only mild language; a strong family pick for children from about 8, PG for the broadcast cut.