Michael is mortally offended that Phyllis gets to be Santa instead of him, to the point where he's fully prepared to ruin the office Christmas party. Like there's ever been a Dunder-Mifflin Scranton Christmas party that hasn't been ruined. But when Michael tries to complain about it to David Wallace, the CFO talks out of school to Michael for what may be the last time: the company is being sold, and the bosses are out. Michael takes this to mean that the branch is doomed as well, but when he -- and everyone else -- get Wallace on the phone, they are informed that the new owners will want to keep the branch-level employees around. We can of course count on Michael to proclaim it a Christmas miracle.
In other news, Andy has been giving Erin, his Secret Santa recipient, the literal Twelve Days of Christmas gifts, which she hates. See, they keep attacking her. Also, Oscar has a crush on a warehouse guy, and tries to lay the groundwork for a relationship despite Pam's attempts to facilitate. But everyone gets a happy ending, complete with twelve drummers drumming.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then check out our guide to Michael's Best and Worst Career Moves.
With Jim at his side, Dwight wishes the bullpen a merry Christmas in his typical authoritarian manner. After a brief talking-head in which he says his diabolical plot is on hold for the holidays, we're back in the bullpen for the unveiling of the tree. Ryan says he's been to 30 Rock for that, and this is nothing like that, even adding a Grinchy, "Uch." Then the tree is unveiled, and no one is impressed, partly because it's not decorated and because it's what I used to call a "permanent" tree. "We're supposed to applaud you for pulling a giant diaper off a fake tree?" Stanley asks. "This was a successful unveiling!" Dwight barks. "Go back to work! Merry Christmas!" I'm so glad they're still the party planning committee. I was afraid they'd forgotten.
From the front of the bullpen, Erin, with bandages over two wicked slashes down her face (looks like she nearly lost an eye, in fact), begs her Secret Santa, whoever it is, to please stop sending her the Twelve Days of Christmas. "My cat killed a turtledove. The French hens have started pulling out my hair to make a nest." "What psycho would send that as a gift?" Kelly asks, and hugs Erin. Andy, who was looking uncomfortable throughout this speech, says, "Is it my fault that the first eight days is basically 30 birds?" We get to see Erin discovering seven swans a-stranded in her car in the parking lot.
Enter Phyllis, dressed as Santa Claus. Apparently this has been a dream of hers for a long time, and she's pretty choked-up about it in a TH. During her interaction with the people in the bullpen, Creed asks, "What if you've been bad?" "Then nothing but a lump of coal for you," Phyllis says. Creed presses, "What if you've been really, really bad, more evil and strictly wrong?" Jim says they covered it. That's what he thinks.
Dwight says his Secret Santa has been sending him pieces of something that he's been trying to put together, which is similar to his idea for catching Osama Bin Laden. "He would assemble it to find himself in jail," Dwight smirks.
In the conference room, Pam notices that Oscar seems distracted, and see that it's because he's watching a new, blond warehouse guy playing football in the parking lot. "Go, Oscar," Pam THs. "Go, gay warehouse guy!" Go, Pam. Go over there, and stay away from Oscar and the warehouse guy. Seriously, just go.
Michael finally enters in his own Santa suit, in character, and when Pam points out that Phyllis has it covered, he demands, "What the hell is going on?"
In Michael's office, he yells at Jim to de-Santa Phyllis, which Jim refuses to do. From behind his very distracting beard, Michael THs some nonsense about how Santa is in Russia, concluding, "It's a good thing Russia doesn't exist any more."
Michael hauls his guest chair out into the bullpen to disrupt Ryan's photo sessions with people sitting on Phyllis's lap, calling her "Tranny Claus" and inviting them to sit on the lap of someone who isn't pretending to be a man. "Sit down on my lap and there will be no doubt. No, it's not, like, penis-wise." The first one to take him up on it is Kevin, because Phyllis said he's too big. Kevin takes his sweet time on Michael's lap and we can even hear the chair creaking under them until Michael kicks him off. "I didn't even get to tell you what I want yet," Kevin complains. "Okay, You know what you get? You get a thousand helium balloons attached to you so Santa doesn't have to go through this again." Kevin: "Awesome!"
Phyllis enters Jim's office, and Jim assures her he's on her side. "Don't make me get Bob involved," Phyllis threatens. Jim wonders what Bob would do, and Phyllis scampers away, having said too much.
Erin asks Andy if he's the one sending the gifts, and he admits it, although he's laughing the whole time so she'll think he's kidding. It's just about as awkward as when he asked her out. Except that at least this time he doesn't back away from admitting it... quite. Baby steps, I guess.
While Pam watches from the warehouse door, Oscar goes down to deliver Matt's check, and offers to wait when Darryl says he's out. "Matt's a pretty good-lookin' dude, don't you think?" Darryl asks Oscar, which gets rid of him in a hurry.
Up in the bullpen, Michael tries to pull Ryan away from his camera tripod to be his lap-guest until Jim intervenes. "You can't yell out, 'I need this, I need this' as you pin down an employee on your lap," he says. Right, Jim. Point out to me where in the employee manual it says that. Michael offers to call for a vote on who wants Phyllis as Santa, and of course the vote is in favor of Phyllis, 30 million to Dwight. "Want some punch?" Jim asks Michael, so Michael stuffs his Santa hat in the punchbowl. That's not very jolly of him at all.
Dwight has lashed his pieces together into something vaguely gun-shaped, but since no one else seems to think it's a gun, he crosses that off his list of possible items. Must be a heartbreaker for him.
It's story time in the bullpen, with Phyllis as Santa presiding over the lighting of the tree. Michael can't stand it, and in his office, he angrily turns his Santa jacket inside out to show the white lining and knots a braided extension cord around his waist. He says all he wants is to be Santa. "But when you need my help because I am ruining everything, don't look at me."
Michael comes bursting out of his office, claiming to be Jesus Christ to remind everyone of the true meaning of Christmas. Angela applauds. She's the only one, of course. "Wow, Michael, it must be obvious how wrong this is," Toby says in amazement, which just gets him branded the Antichrist.
Andy asks Phyllis not to tell Erin he's her Secret Santa. Phyllis is only too happy to pin it on Michael.
During the party, Pam awkwardly introduces Oscar to Matt, clumsily trying to forge a relationship based on how much Matt likes the paté Oscar made. "How come the good ones are never straight, right?" "Okay, Pam," Oscar says. "Yes, they're the only two gay guys I know," Pam THs. "But they should be together." Oh, Pam.
Phyllis is handing out gifts, and when Dwight is excited to get another component, Michael drones into the karaoke microphone, "Oh, yes, it's space garbage! Dwight's going to be able to build himself a friend. Deck the halls with crappy gi-ifts..." When it's Stanley's turn and Phyllis says he's been a good boy, Michael points out the part about cheating on is wife. "Adultery's a sin." Stanley opens scented candles. "That's appropriate. A lot of fire where you're going... Going to hell, Stanley." Angela gives that an amen, but Michael can't bother to turn his head to see her open her gift of fabric. "That's fantastic, you can make another dress that goes past your feet." Why can't regular Michael be as funny as angry Michael? Angela wonders if it was Andy, and Michael blurts that Andy had Erin. Jim shuts off the microphone, about five minutes too late, and Michael stomps into his office.
Michael gets David Wallace on the phone to complain about how "a woman has uslurped my role as Santa." Wallace says this "a very, very bad time." He tells his assistant, Stephanie to jump off the call, and Michael hears Erin offering to do the same from reception. Now that it's just the two of them, Wallace tells Michael that the company is going to be sold and cleaned out. Wallace is going to be fired, and so is Alan. It's going to be a complete housecleaning. "Goodbye, Michael," David says. Dude, way to harsh Michael's holiday bout of self-pity.
Michael does a pensive TH, having changed out of his costume and into a sweatshirt: "Earlier today this office needed a Santa. And then it needed a second Santa. And then it needed a Jesus. And now, it needs a Michael." Wow, things really are desperate.
Michael wanders more humbly into the bullpen and asks how everyone's doing. "Not great," Jim says. "You heckled Santa for an hour and a half." Okay, I stand corrected; Jim did not shut off the microphone five minutes too late. Michael blames "hurt, petulant Jesus" for ruining the party, and sends Dwight off with his debit card to get some pizzas, "discreetly" hinting that his PIN number is "YMCA," in a way that everyone gets except Dwight.
Andy tries to make excuses to Erin, and uses the oldest one: "It's the thought that counts," he says. "What were you thinking?" she responds. That one kind of stumps him. Andy THs that a gentleman would throw in the towel. "Guess what? Not gonna happen."
Michael gives a speech to the troops in the conference room, telling them that Christmas is not about Santa or Jesus, but about the workplace. Which is why they always spend it at the office, right? He goes on to say how they're all his family (in a totally inappropriate way, of course), "And I can't help but look at all of your wonderful, beautiful faces and think how could they do this to us?" Everyone seizes on that, wondering what he means, and Michael spills that David said they're going out of business. General consternation, as everyone demands more details. "We have been sold!" Michael says. Dwight dropkicks the Christmas tree. Jim, who already has his cell phone in hand, asks for clarification, pointing out, "That could mean many different things." Indeed. I worked at one place where the company coffee mugs we got at Christmas had a different logo every year. Michael argues, "It's hard for me to imagine a scenario where Meredith Palmer keeps her job and David Wallace does not." Meredith doesn't argue the point. Michael says he'll call Wallace back, which Jim thinks is impossible, since Wallace isn't picking up. But Michael has an in: he calls Wallace's kids' school.
A moment later. Wallace is pretty flustered to be, as Michael tells him, "on speakerphone with the entire branch and the warehouse." Everyone says hi. After pointing out that Michael wasn't supposed to tell anyone (and honestly, I have absolutely no sympathy for Wallace any more on this score), Wallace says he was only talking about himself, Alan, and some other executives they don't know. "They're buying the company for the distribution. You guys are the only thing about this company that works. So congratulations." Everyone celebrates, and Michael does a desk-dive. Which seems a little insensitive, what with Wallace still on the phone and all.
Back to the party. The karaoke machine has been fired up again, and Dwight's singing "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." The Green Day one. Meredith and "Pudge" from the warehouse set the tree back aright. Kelly is overwhelmed by emotion over the Robert Pattinson poster Jim got her. Andy joins Dwight on harmony. Ryan gives Toby a kite to go with his copy of The Kite Runner, and barely evades a hug. Kevin sings "O Christmas Tree" in an even deeper baritone, and Michael watches Dwight finish his contraption, which turns out to have a crank, gears and a metal chute. Dwight has no idea what it is. "Maybe these will help," Michael says, smugly setting a paper bag on the desk and walking away. Secret's out. Not that Dwight gets it yet.
Oscar shakes Matt's hand, saying it was nice to meet him and calling him "Mark." "I know what I'm doing, Pam," he tells her. Doesn't it work better on guys without their names sewn on the front of their shirts? Dwight drops a walnut down the chute of his machine, turns the crank, and gets a perfectly cracked nut out the other side. Michel grins as Dwight rhapsodizes about the nuts he can use this on, going on to, "Clams, snails..." Then Michael goes to sit on Phyllis's lap to ask for an Xbox, a compatible TV and "I'm sorry." Phyllis accepts the apology, Santa-like, "Because I've decided you're a good boy." Right then is when Bob Vance from Vance refrigeration walks in, loaded for bear in his own Santa suit and demanding to know what's going on. Phyllis says it's resolved, and they make with the PDA. "Get a room, Santas," Michael says.
In the tag, everyone's walking out together when suddenly they're greeted by an entire uniformed drum corps. "Twelve drummers drumming," Pam realizes. Andy steps in front of them with a pair of cymbals and dances along, wishing Erin a Merry Christmas. Everyone smiles, but no one as much as Erin. Way to pull it off there at the end, Andy.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then check out our guide to Michael's Best and Worst Career Moves.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.