The series depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.
Darryl Philbin (Craig Robinson) fears that Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) has forgotten to include him in the new job in Philadelphia.
Pete (Jake Lacy) teaches Erin Hannon (Ellie Kemper) about his favorite movie, Die Hard.
The episode was also viewed by 4.16 million viewers and received a 2.1/6 percent rating among adults between the ages of 18 and 49, ranking fourth in its timeslot.
He dresses up as the traditional winter Christmas gift-bringer figure Belsnickel, cooks German food, and plays a game similar to "Naughty or Nice".
While watching the movie, Erin begins to cry as she starts doubting Andy's commitment to her and Pete tries to comfort her by placing his arm around her, which she accepts.
[7] The basic plot of the episode, involving Belsnickel, had originally been conceived during the writing for fourth season and was going to air as that year's Christmas installment.
According to executive producer and showrunner Greg Daniels, the writing staff wanted to use the premise for many years, but could never find a right time to implement it, until an opportunity during the show's last season presented itself.
[11][12] On June 26, 2020, it was announced that a scene where the character Nate Nickerson appeared in blackface as the mythical personage Zwarte Piet was removed from the episode in light of the George Floyd protests.
[15] (In June 2020, the scene featuring Zwarte Piet was removed from Netflix in response to nationwide protests following the murder of George Floyd).
[16] Dwight presents the camera with a picture of him and his brother celebrating Christmas, and a version of the same photo decorated in the style of the 1999 science fiction film The Matrix.
[17] When Jim is trying to convince the office to do Dwight's idea, he mispronounces one of the German character's names, calling him "Hufflepuff", one of the four houses of the magical school Hogwarts from the book series Harry Potter by J.K.
[2] In its original American broadcast, the episode was viewed by 4.16 million viewers and received a 2.1 rating/6% share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49.
Although she noted that Erin and Pete's subplot "could've easily been ripped from the season two Jim-Pam-Roy storyline", she concluded that "The Office successfully found a way to make its final Christmas count.
"[19] Brett Davinger of the California Literary Review wrote that, while the episode's plot was "not particularly notable" on the surface, it manages to work "because of Rainn Wilson's commitment to it".