TVSquad

(S02E10) I was basically a good kid, so during the Christmas season I didn't fret too much about upsetting my parents and not getting presents. I did worry about Santa, though, a fictional being I believed in slightly longer than most kids. What was interesting about this episode is that the "real" Santa is never referred to. I don't know if this was for plot convenience, or because Chris' family was more realistic about what the kids could and could not get for Christmas.

Looking back over the episode, though, I liked that it kept things grounded in reality. Drew and Tawnya try to behave so they'll get expensive gifts, Chris puts gifts on layaway for his family and Julius takes extra work to afford presents, including playing a black Santa at a white department store named Goldsteins, something that doesn't go unnoticed by narrator Chris Rock.

The "Kris" in this episode refers to another patient in Chris' hospital room, played by Richard Lewis. If I had an Emmy lying around the house I'd give it to Lewis for his performance. Eschewing his usual "neurotic Jew" shtick, Lewis drew a lot of emotion from his brief time on screen, and his run about all the people who are worse off than Chris (including a lady attacked by beavers and a man with no legs who gets a pogo stick instead of crutches) was the funniest part of the episode.

I can turn down my cynicism a little during Christmas and enjoy some of the sappier things TV has to offer, but I like how this episode proved that Christmas doesn't have to rely on magic and other nonsense, it can just be about trying a little harder to show others how much they mean to you.

Best moments:

• When Chris' dad gets a job as Santa, Chris the narrator reasons he can just tell people he's from the South Pole.
• Julius/Santa telling the kids their presents are too expensive, and even telling a blind kid that surgery would be too expensive.
• Chris imagining things that can't be put on layaway, conjuring up one scene in which a woman's dying son is replaced with another they had on layaway.