A Benihana Christmas

In the episode, Christmas time at the office leads to depression for Michael, when his girlfriend Carol (Nancy Walls) breaks up with him.

Back at the office, after a conflict with a bossy Angela, Karen and Pam decide to create their own Christmas party.

The group stumbles upon an unexpecting couple at the table and Dwight fails when attempting to impress the chef with his knowledge of Japanese knives.

Andy successfully isolates Dwight from the rest of the party and convinces Michael to ask out their waitress, Cindy.

Meanwhile, Jim plays pranks on Dwight and realizes that his excuse for declining Pam's gift does not hold water.

Oscar enters the office with his partner Gil just as Angela is singing "The Little Drummer Boy," pauses for a moment, says, "Too soon" and leaves.

At the end of the day, Jim tells Pam that a helicopter will be arriving to take Dwight to a welcoming party at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The production crew hired all of the restaurant's chefs and waitstaff, along with 78 background actors, to play in the episode.

According to the show's prop master, this was because Andy and Michael failed to pick up the original waitresses, and settled for "less attractive ones".

[6] However, at Paley Fest 2007, Greg Daniels admitted that the women they cast were "too good-looking", which led to the joke failing since the original script specifically called for Andy and Michael's dates to be unattractive.

[9] An IGN review stated: This week marked the second year in a row The Office has done a Christmas episode, and it's already become such a great way to play the characters off each other, that we can't help but hope they continue the tradition every season.

But even then, there were amusing moments to be had, such as Dwight arguing with Toby over whether he could cook a dead goose he brought in – [h]aving hit it with his car, he considered it a "Christmas miracle".

[9] – Eric Goldman, IGNYears after the episode originally aired, the storyline involving the Benihana waitresses received renewed scrutiny in the wake of acknowledgement of racism against Asian Americans.

Kat Ahn, the actress who played the waitress that Michael brought back to the office, said in an interview with The Washington Post that she was disenchanted upon realizing she had been cast on the show "just… to be the joke".