Cue the special title card, a decked out “A Very Supernatural Christmas.”  Major kudos to the graphics designer on that one.  That right there gave us a hint as to how much effort went into this episode.      

It’s next Christmas, in balmy Michigan, and Sam and Dean talk with a traumatized wife and daughter because dad is missing.  Considering Sam found a tooth in the chimney, chances are he’s reindeer food.  By the way, Sam and Dean in suits make for the best Christmas present ever.  They conclude dad couldn’t have fit up the chimney in one piece, which is pretty accurate considering we saw proof of that in the last Christmas scene.   

Here’s a prime example of what happens when great set decoration and directing collide.   Sam’s researching in this week’s motel room, sitting on a dated forest green leather couch when Dean comes in, exposing the red leather retro table and chairs, ugly green curtains, and loud yellow floral wallpaper.  A standard room so far, right?  After Sam and Dean exchange some theories, we get the full money shot, Dean standing in front of a hokey Thomas Kinkade mural covering the entire opposite wall, instantly throwing him into the center of a cozy holiday picture.  I laughed hard and froze the frame, partly because it’s the most absurd scene you’ll ever see Dean Winchester in, and partly because Jared Padalecki has a Christmas movie coming out one of these days where he plays Thomas Kinkade.  Someone had way too much fun setting this up, and we all win.   

After researching it, the best idea Sam can come up with is evil Santa.  Dean thinks the idea is crazy and reminds Sam there is no Santa, which opens up a nice gaping wound.  “I know, you’re the one who told me in the first place.”  Ouch!  Nicely played Jared, for the resentment feels very real.   

Dean finds out the previous victims visited Santa’s village, and at that point I wondered if Jeremy Carver’s warped childhood involved too many family visits to tacky tourist traps.  Santa’s Village is as awful as we imagined, with the weathered, and in desperate need of paint, entrance topped with an evil-looking Santa, wooden buildings that looked like rotting shacks instead of toy workshops, an unenthusiastic elf and guy in reindeer suit standing among the tacky wooden cutouts of a manger scene that gets banned by most neighborhood associations nowadays, and ugly reindeer made of logs that Amish places try to sell at a premium.  The set designers must have had every one of their Christmas fantasies, real and surreal, come true.   

Dean uses this bizarre backdrop to suggest that he and Sam celebrate Christmas this year.  Sam hates the idea, claiming their Christmases weren’t exactly loaded with “Hallmark memories.”  Are they for anyone?  My memories of Christmas include being bored stiff with my new toys after an hour and nothing but crap on TV, all while the adults broke into the eggnog early.  These were the days before the Internet, DVD’s or even VHS, and my videogame choices were limited Pong.  At least when I get drunk at Christmas now my kids have GameCube.