The holiday season is officially upon us, and you know what that means: Christmas episodes! Many superhero cartoons devote at least one episode to showing how our heroes celebrate the day (or try to avoid it). For this list, I decided to stick with regular episodes rather than specials. Sorry, Marvel Super Hero Adventures: Frost Fight!
It’s still early in the month, so you have plenty of time to work your way through all of these Christmas-themed episodes, arranged in more-or-less chronological order by air date!
Show: Batman: The Animated Series
Episode Title: “Christmas with the Joker”
Air Date: November 13, 1992
What’s This Got to Do With Christmas?: The Joker hijacks a TV station and forces some unhappy hostages to celebrate the season with him. He also sings That Song. You know the one.
Show: Freakazoid!
Episode Title: “The Chip, Parts I and II”
Air Date: November 4 and November 11, 1995
What’s This Got to Do With Christmas?: Our hero’s origin story revolves around him receiving an incredibly nerdy Christmas gift.
Show: X-Men: The Animated Series
Episode Title: “Have Yourself a Morlock Little X-Mas”
Air Date: December 23, 1995
What’s This Got to Do With Christmas?: Jubilee makes Wolverine go Christmas shopping! And the team also gets some nice intangible gifts for the Morlocks. Big props on the title, too.
Show: The New Batman Adventures
Episode Title: “Holiday Knights”
Air Date: September 13, 1997 (why?)
What’s This Got to Do With Christmas?: Harley, Ivy, and Batgirl all go Christmas shopping. Guess which two steal someone else’s money to do it.
Show: X-Men: Evolution
Episode Title: “On Angel’s Wing”
Air Date: December 15, 2001
What’s This Got to Do With Christmas?: While Angel makes his only appearance in this series, Rogue and Cyclops discuss religion.
Show: Static Shock
Episode Title: “Frozen Out”
Air Date: February 23, 2002 (why?!)
What’s This Got to Do With Christmas?: Static learns the true meaning of Christmas…and Hanukkah…and Ramadan…AND Kwanzaa!
Show: Justice League
Episode Title: “Comfort and Joy”
Air Date: December 13, 2003
What’s This Got to Do With Christmas?: The various League members get into snowball fights, go toy shopping, and open lead-wrapped presents (that last one may just be Superman).
Show: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003 series)
Episode Title: “The Christmas Aliens”
Air Date: December 25, 2004
What’s This Got to Do With Christmas?: If memory serves, the titular aliens are this year’s hot Christmas gift. Also, in truly keeping with the spirit of the season, Mikey rescues a kitten. Aww.
Show: Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Episode Title: “Invasion of the Secret Santas!”
Air Date: December 12, 2008
What’s This Got to Do With Christmas?: Fun Haus plants evil toys under every child’s tree while Red Tornado tries to figure out Christmas. It goes bad.
Show: Spectacular Spider-Man
Episode Title: “Reinforcement”
Air Date: January 25, 2009
What’s This Got to Do With Christmas?: While Spidey deals with the supervillains, Petey and pals have some ice skating oopsies (and, if I remember right, some hot chocolate oopsies, too).
Show: Teen Titans Go!
Episode Title: “Second Christmas”, “The True Meaning of Christmas”, “Halloween v Christmas”, “Teen Titans Save Christmas”, “Christmas Crusaders”, “The Great Holiday Escape”, “Christmas Magic”
Air Date: December 4, 2013; December 3, 2015; October 27, 2016; December 1, 2016; December 21, 2019; December 9, 2022; December 2, 2023
What’s This Got to Do With Christmas?: I think this show wins the award for MOST Christmas in a single series, including two episodes in the same year.
Show: Ultimate Spider-Man
Episode Title: “Nightmare on Christmas”, “The Moon Knight Before Christmas”
Air Date: December 3, 2014; December 17, 2016
What’s This Got to Do With Christmas?: In the first one, Spidey gets the George Bailey treatment (and no one deserves it more). The second involves, uh, giant angry gingerbread men.
While I’d like to say that this is every Christmas episode ever, I’m sure I missed some, so feel free to come fill in the gaps on BlueSky.
