What Halloween is to The Simpsons, Christmas is to American Dad! – an opportunity to cut loose and do some truly bizarre, fantastical, reality-breaking stuff, and create some of the show’s finest episodes in the process. (Though it’s lost a bit of novelty over time, as bizarre, fantastical, reality-breaking stuff has become just an average Monday on American Dad!)

Anyhoo, in honor of the holiday season, I’ve decided to list my Top 10 all-time favorite Christmas episodes of American Dad! Let’s hit it!

#10 – Dreaming of a White Porsche Christmas

Not the funniest American Dad! Christmas, and it takes a bit to get going, but once we get to the third act, it becomes a doozy of a mind-bender.

The ep spends most of its runtime as a stock be-careful-what-you-wish-for tale: Stan takes their family for granted, envying the swinging bachelor lifestyle of Principal Lewis, and through a “Christmas wish” switches lives with Lewis and learns an important lesson about appreciating what you have. But then the twist comes: this Christmas wish reality only exists inside another fake reality, also created to teach Stan a lesson, and it’ll take a third reality bending wish to set things right.

It’s a solid example of how American Dad! handles Christmas: take a classic, feel-good, imitated-to-death story (in this case, a mix of It’s a Wonderful Life and Freaky Friday) and watch it go completely off the rails into bizarro fantasy adventure.

Biggest Laugh: “Okay, I learned my damn lesson: Lewis has my shit, and I want it back.” “I’m not sure you have – you’re calling your family ‘shit’.”

#9 – Minstrel Krampus

This is another one that I wasn’t quite feeling until the third act. I know it’s among American Dad!‘s most well-loved Christmas eps, but for me it suffers from being a musical episode where most of the songs are in styles I’m not fond of. Plus, it’s got a “corporal punishment is good!” message where I can’t tell if it’s meant to be ironic or not.

On the plus side, bringing Santa Claus back as a recurring Christmas nemesis (and in league with “Big Toy”), and tying these fantasy shenanigans into the ongoing saga of Stan’s crook of a father, Jack, makes for an ep that’s rich in American Dad! lore. And once we get to the assault on Krampus’s castle and the massacre of the Beauty & the Beast-style talking household objects, it becomes hysterical. Helps to end on a high note.

Biggest Laugh: Drowning the talking plunger in the toilet is so dark and nonsensical, I just love it.

#8 – Gift Me Liberty

This is the odd man out of American Dad! Christmases, as it eschews bizarre fantasy premises in favor of just doing an ordinary American Dad! episode (though ordinary for American Dad! still means Roger has magic word conjuring powers and Steve spreads a virulent plague that only spares virgins). And since only the beginning and end of the episode actually take place around Christmas, they have Roger break the fourth wall to ask whether this even counts as their Christmas episode.

But, by my judgement, it’s got enough Christmasiness to count, and earns this spot on the list by being just a solid, funny episode. A lot of that comes from giving plenty of opportunities for Patrick Stewart to go absolutely unhinged as Avery Bullock (“I declare prima nocta!”) And while the notion that Stan Smith, of all people, would be uncomfortable with lying is hard to swallow, the lengths Stan goes to hide their Secret Santa negligence is delightful. Just a nice episode all around.

Biggest Laugh: The running gag of Roger causing words made of smoke to appear is so weird, and has such a great payoff.

#7 – Seasons Beatings

Now here’s where the all-time classics begin.

The bread-and-butter of American Dad! Christmases is doing violent funhouse-mirror versions of classic Christmas stories, and this ep has perhaps the ultimate version of that: go from celebrating the birth of baby Jesus to trying to murder the baby Antichrist. That we can start with Stan auditioning to be in a Christmas pageant and escalate to a globe-trotting adventure involving deadly battles, ancient relics, and demonic powers, it’s a great example of what makes Christmas on American Dad! so special.

Biggest Laugh: Roger testing their ultra-alcoholic eggnog on a rat. The results are so demented and disturbing, I’m surprised it was allowed to air back when American Dad! was a broadcast network, FCC regulated show. But damn if it ain’t a gutbuster! (in more ways than one)

#6 – Yule. Tide. Repeat.

It’s a time loop episode. If a TV show does a time loop episode, it will be one of the most beloved in the series. That’s just a law of nature.

This one delivers the expected montage of Stan trying and failing to avert disaster over and over, each time having to start the loop again, and it’s predictably hilarious. But there’s more going on than just that.

Most of these Christmas episodes (and much of American Dad! generally) has Stan learning a lesson about treating their family better, and “Yule. Tide. Repeat.” is no exception. Some might groan at the been-there-done-that nature of this lesson, but I think it works wonderfully here.

It helps that Stan starts off far more sympathetic than normal, just wanting to give the family a perfect Christmas experience (and break their tradition of only having “very bad, very weird Christmases”). It’s just that Stan (being Stan) is so focused on their own idea of the perfect Christmas, they don’t pay attention to what the rest of the family wants.

To escape the time loop, Stan has to learn everything they can about their situation, including what the other Smiths choose to do besides their “Christmas chores”. It’s a terrific way of forcing character growth (there’s a reason time loop stories are such classics), and builds to an ending where Stan learns their lesson and embraces their family that feels earned and genuinely touching (even as the thing that finally breaks the time loop is incredibly, hilariously crass).

Biggest Laugh: The janitor who leaps right helping Stan through the time loop, like they’ve been preparing for this moment all their life.

#5 – For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls

Until quite a ways into this episode, it feels like maybe it’ll be the same deal as “Gift Me Liberty”, just an ordinary episode of American Dad! that happens to be set around Christmas (“ordinary” for American Dad! meaning Steve accidentally machine guns a mall Santa while Roger goes on a hallucinogenic quest for the ultimate moonshine). Then we get the reveal that Santa Claus is a) real, and b) a violent psychopath bent on murdering the Smith family – that’s when things get wild.

The climactic shootout with Santa’s elfin army is the part everyone remembers, and with good reason. It’s such an over-the-top, constantly escalating spectacle, full of rapid fire gags, nice moments between the characters, and legitimately exciting action – it’s easily one of the best scenes the show has ever done. Little wonder the show has gone back to the Evil Santa well so many times, but never to such a gloriously amazeballs finish.

Biggest Laugh: “My name is Klaus Heisler.”

#4 – Ninety North, Zero West

It may not finish as strong as “For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls”, but this ep is still my favorite of the Evil Santa Saga, taking the concept to its ultimate form with Santa as a supervillain bent on world domination.

This wild plot lets the episode move quickly from one hilariously ridiculous moment to the next: the decoy Smith family, Puddn’ the Exiled Elf, Krampus Jack driving a bus in Baltimore, Santa’s “grand design”, the train powered by Christmas Love (“Christmas Hate powers it in reverse”). Yet it still maintains a relatable emotional core, the desire to have a good Christmas, even if your Christmases never turn out the way you want (though no one’s Christmases go as off-the-rails as the Smith clan’s).

Just top notch all around.

Biggest Laugh: Francine being a surprise expert on the Epic of Gilgamesh and arguing with Santa over the Binderman translation.

#3 – The Best Christmas Story Never Told

The first American Dad! Christmas episode, setting the stage for all the zaniness that followed.

It starts like a typical episode of the show’s early years, with Stan upset at some aspect of progressivism (in this case, the Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas debate). When the Ghost of Christmas Past shows up, it’s atypical for the show thus far, but fits the mold of the many, many other series that have done A Christmas Carol riffs in the past. But then Stan goes AWOL from their trip to the past, planning to kill Jane Fonda and “save Christmas”, messing up the timeline so bad they have to go back in time again, make the movie Taxi Driver, and defeat the Soviet Union.

This ep is a blast, an exercise in seeing just how far afield they can go from a typical Christmas setup, yet still bringing it back around to the theme of Christmas togetherness in the end. Plus, Lisa Kudrow as the frazzled and under-competent Ghost of Christmas Past is a special sort of delight.

Biggest Laugh: Probably the last time anyone anywhere made a Walter Mondale joke, but it’s a hell of a one to go out on.

#2 – The Most Adequate Christmas Ever

This was the show’s second Christmas episode, following a similar format to the first: Stan is put in a stock learn-a-lesson-via-a-fantastical-premise plot (in this case, dying and having to defend your life in a celestial trial), but going wildly off-script when Stan, rather than learning a lesson, instead whips out a gun.

It may not be the trailblazer, but the episode makes up for it through sheer craft, with nearly every joke being a gutbuster, giving us so many great lines, and still having a solid emotional resolution at the end. And it’s all heightened by the sheer absurdity of the premise: while turning A Christmas Carol into a time travel adventure was fun, it’s got nothing on Stan rampaging through heaven and putting a gun to God’s head. (“Seriously, why do we have heaven guns?”)

And I’m honestly not sure which I like better: Lisa Kudrow’s Michelle-the-Ghost-of-Christmas-Past or Paget Brewster’s Michelle-the-Angel-Lawyer. Please, don’t make me choose – not on Christmas!

Biggest Laugh: The fate of Jim Henson. “You will bow down before me, Son of God!”

#1 – Rapture’s Delight

No surprise what came in at number one. “Rapture’s Delight” is a popular contender, not just for the best American Dad! Christmas episode, but the best American Dad! episode, period.

It’s got everything you expect from top-tier American Dad!: A+ jokes throughout, and an ending that celebrates the love between these characters, while still making that love fodder for yet another joke (so much earnest sentiment put into the line “Definitely not like a whore, baby. Definitely not like a whore.”) Yet it also goes places you’d never have thought the show would go.

Once the story jumps ahead seven years, to a demon infested, post- mid-apocalyptic warzone, the whole vibe changes. The music, the visuals, the performances: it doesn’t feel like American Dad! – it feels like we’re watching a lost segment from Heavy Metal. The jokes still come, and are still strong, but the show genuinely commits to the idea of becoming an epic, dark fantasy adventure with serious stakes …

…at least until the Antichrist appears, and the sheer ridiculousness of that reveal is such a tone shift, it’s the second biggest laugh of the episode.

For giving us everything we could hope for from an American Dad! Christmas, plus great stuff we’d never have thought to hope for, and constructing itself in such a way that, no matter how long the show runs, you can always imagine that this is the real ending: for all that, “Rapture’s Delight” absolutely deserves to be number one.

Biggest Laugh: Ricky the Raptor explaining the Rapture.

Have a safe and happy Christmas, y’all! Don’t make any ill-advised wishes, be careful when traveling back in time, and if you run into Santa Claus, the Antichrist, or the Grounch, just shoot ’em with a heaven gun.