Seinfeld's 'The Pick' Is a Christmas Movie (Er, TV Episode)

Every year, as sure as the tree in Rockefeller Center will be lit up and parents will leave out a tray of cookies for Santa, the holidays' most persistent annual tradition will commence: dozens of online outlets will re-enter the fray and debate whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

The 1988 action flick starred Brue Willis as a resourceful everyman who foils the armed takeover of a Los Angeles high-rise on the night of his wife's office Christmas party. Die Hard isn't a traditional Christmas movie — no Grinch, no "God bless us, everyone" — which only enhances the thrill of deeming it a holiday classic. It cannot be stressed enough how much this happens every year.

Parade just made the one billionth case for Die Hard being a Christmas movie. The Economist has weighed in with a typically dry take. The Pioneer Woman's website has a both-sides equivocation of the debate.

In 2022, it was Men's Health coming down on the pro side. In 2021, The Atlantic covered the coverage. In 2017, screenwriter Steven E. DeSouza went on the record confirming that it's a Christmas movie. In 2018, Bruce Willis claimed Die Hard is definitively not a Christmas movie at his Comedy Central Roast.

It's not like there aren't dozens of unconventional Christmas movies that could be the standard bearer for this annual tradition. Batman Returns! Carol! Literally anything that Shane Black has ever written! But for movies, it always comes back to Die Hard. We're all so tired. It's time to turn our eyes to television and what should be the unconventional Christmas episode that we write about every year: Seinfeld's "The Pick."

As with Die Hard, the beauty of the "The Pick"-as-Christmas-episode take lies in its incongruity. Die Hard was a grimy, macho action movie. "The Pick" is called "The Pick" and explicitly refers to Jerry getting caught picking his nose at an intersection by his new model girlfriend. On the surface — around the rim of the nostril, if you will — it's a ludicrous candidate for the Christmas canon. But dig deeper, get way up in there, and you'll remember that the episode's featured subplot involves Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) sending out Christmas cards with her photo on them, only to face the horrifying realization that she accidentally exposed her nipple in the photo.

This is easily the comedic highlight of the episode, with Elaine first panicking as she rattles off the list of loved ones to whom she's just accidentally mailed a peep show (Father Chelios! Sister Mary Catherine! Nana and Papa!), and then giving George (Jason Alexander) an eyeful when he obliviously complains about not getting a card this year.

In classic Seinfeld fashion, what makes "The Pick" a perfect Christmas episode is the way in which it gets at a particular and common anxiety: the pressure to mail out Christmas cards at the holidays and the added pressure to make yours fun and distinct. Elaine is sick of not being creative with her holiday cards, which is why she takes Kramer up on his photo-shoot offer. This initiative, in all its holiday spirit, backfires spectacularly. We've all been there — maybe not with our nipples exposed, but we've all been there.

And before anyone objects, yes, "The Pick" is a more definitive Seinfeld holiday episode than the Festivus episode, because "The Pick" is more universally applicable. The experience of our eccentric parents inventing a brutalist, minimalist holiday out of thin air is simply not as relatable as an embarrassing Christmas card.

The social expectations that suffuse the holidays — like sending out Christmas cards — often create opportunities for embarrassment. Around the office, Elaine's co-workers start calling her "Nip." This won't be the last time Elaine embarrasses herself at work around Christmas, as she'll later dance bizarrely at the office holiday party, but the Elaine Dance episode isn't a Christmas episode, it's a musical episode. But that's a debate for another time.

Joe Reid is the senior writer at Primetimer and co-host of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. His work has appeared in Decider, NPR, HuffPost, The Atlantic, Slate, Polygon, Vanity Fair, Vulture, The A.V. Club and more.