An Ass-Kicking Christmas

It's the most action-packed time of the year.

"Because this is what you think of when you think of Christmas, right? People beating the shit out of each other."

— The Nostalgia Critic, The He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special review

A work/episode/story takes place during Christmas-time, and it's action-packed. "Peace on Earth, Goodwill towards man" kind of gets left by the wayside when some people just want good, old-fashioned fights and explosions. Maybe they're finding a way to channel their aggression from shopping? This is a common occurrence when action/adventure-oriented shows want to do a Christmas Special, but they know the viewers are tuning in expecting some ass-kicking action. If there's a soundtrack, The Nutcracker will be optional. Carol of the Bells is indispensable!

This is only about action works. The way to know is if you take the Christmas elements out, it would be straight-up action.

And even if a work isn't directly about Christmas, a lot of action works get some of their best business around this time.

Can overlap with Badass Santa (would be a Sub-Trope, but sometimes a work with that trope takes place at other times of the year), Saving Christmas (for when this trope is inherently used in a setting where the holiday itself is in some form of danger), Did I Mention It's Christmas? (if the Christmas elements aren't remotely integral to the story, just mentioned occasionally) and Santabomination (when the heroes discover the hard way that Santa is a murderous monster and must fight to survive). May involve instances of Chaos of the Bells.

Compare Saving Christmas, Twisted Christmas (especially if it has a Downer Ending).

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Blood+: A tragic example; Saya's Vietnam War massacre occurred on Christmas Day.
Although it's not heavily focused on, the climactic final battle in the manga version Chrono Crusade takes place from Christmas Eve to the dawn of Christmas. At one point, Chrono mentions to Rosette that it means they'll have something new to celebrate every year if they're victorious.
In Dragon Ball Z, the battle against Freeza occurred on Christmas Eve. Unlike other examples, this one is likely a mere coincidence, as this isn't pointed out in-series, but it's All There in the Manual.
- In GT, the final battle against Baby is on the day before Christmas too.
GTO: The Early Years: After both Ryuji and Eikichi strike out with girls on the ski trip, they end up fighting a group of delinquents whose car Eikichi wrecked when rescuing Souna.
The Karas OVA take place entirely around Christmas-time, when much of the city's population gets eaten/drained of all their blood by evil robotic demons, which also destroy most of the city.
The final battle of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, which begins on the episode "Christmas Eve" and lasts throughout the night.
Gundam:
- In Mobile Suit Gundam, the Battle for Solomon takes place on December 24th, with the Battle of A Baoa Qu taking place on December 31st; as the war comes to an end, it's officially January 1st, 0080. It's likely the TV version of the duel at Texas Colony occurred on December 25th, given the timeline of events (the battle at Texas occurred prior to Solomon in the Compilation Movie).
- The final battle of Gundam 0080 takes place on December 25th. What a crummy Christmas present for Al.
- In Mobile Fighter G Gundam, the Gundam Fight format runs through the entire calendar year, from the start of the "Survival Eleven" in January to the Final Rounds held by the host nation in December, which would infer that, although specific dates aren't given, the Final Battle Royale would be held fairly close to Christmas.
- Mobile Suit Gundam Wing's final Story Arc took place in December, with the final battle coming on Christmas Eve; the OVA (and The Movie) Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, which takes place a year later, labels the events of the series "the Eve Wars".
  - The final battle of said OVA also takes place on Christmas Eve. A 2020 Anime News Network article even suggest that Endless Waltz beats out Die Hard 1 as the ultimate Christmas movie, since it has a sentimental element Die Hard lacks.
Jujutsu Kaisen:
- In Jujutsu Kaisen 0, Geto announces to the Jujutsu tech that he will launch a mass scale invasion on December 24th, with the targets being Shinjuku and Kyoto. The rest of the movie takes place between those and the ending, which is December 25th.
- In the main series. Gojo and Sukuna agreed have their fight of the strongest on December 24th.
Samurai Pizza Cats episode "The Cheese Who Stole Christmas".
In Sky Girls, the crew of the Koryu has to scramble the Sonic Diver team when a target approaches on Christmas Eve.
Super Dimension Fortress Macross had Giant Alien Terrorist Santa activating bombs after a raid on Christmas Eve. Followed by the survivors singing Silent Night.
In HeartCatch Pretty Cure! episode 44 has the cures battling a giant snowman Monster of the Week on Christmas Eve, which would have defeated them if not for the return of Cure Flower. Even more? Big Bad Dune returns and promptly puts the Cures in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
- Suite Pretty Cure ♪ gives us another ass-kicking Christmas Episode.
The anime of Cat Planet Cuties has the last three episodes take place at Christmas. The Catian mothership is attacked and taken over by Dogisian forces, and its orbit is set to decay and crash into Earth, forcing the humans to blow the ship up if the main characters can't stop it in time. They do, and the Catians give humanity a 'Christmas gift' in the form of a space elevator that looks like a giant Christmas tree.
The Sailor Moon S movie takes place around Christmas, though not explicitly on the day. Bonus points for Tuxedo Kamen dressing up as Santa Claus.
Sakura Wars: The Movie takes place during the holiday season.
Shakugan no Shana: The anime adaptation's second season finale takes place during Christmas Eve.
Sorcery In The Big City has an attack on Manhattan on Christmas Eve by magical villains with snowman-shaped mooks. The climactic battle takes place in Grand Central Station.

Art

Creepazoids: Series 38 presents a setting where Santa battles against Krampus in a style influenced by toyetic cartoons.

Audio Plays

Torchwood (Big Finish): In "The Grey Mare", Ianto has to defeat a horrific alien entity called the Mari Lywd over his Christmas holidays.

Comic Books

Batman:
- Batman goes through this all. the. friggin'. time. If there's one hero that never takes the day off during the holidays, it's Batman. His enemies LOVE to stir up crap during Christmas, especially guys like the Joker, Mr. Freeze, and the Calendar Man.
- In the 2023 mini-series Batman/Santa Claus: Silent Knight, the Bat-Family, plus a few DC superheroes, join forces with Santa Claus to defeat a horde of vampires during Christmas Time.
Justice League of America (1960): In #152 "2,000 Light-Years to Christmas!", the League must recover three powerful objects that some aliens have lost on Earth; one of them falls in the hands of a little girl who lost her family in a Middle Eastern war and uses it for revenge against the invaders. While there is plenty of action, in the end, the girl is convinced to surrender the object peacefully by Red Tornado. It is later revealed that the objects were actually intended as gifts... for a messiah being born in another world! Oh, and Tornado, who is an android, adopts the little girl as his daughter.
JLA (1997): In #60, or in the Terror Incognita trade paperback, Plastic Man, helping friends on Christmas Eve, has to tell a story to get their son off to sleep. He spins a yarn of Santa Claus helping the JLA to deal with the demon, Neron, which includes use of his 'heat vision'. Martian Manhunter, listening in on Plastic Man's open communicator, is able to use his powers to convince the son that Santa does have heat vision but still can't believe that Plastic Man came up with the idea of Santa having heat vision. Neither can Santa himself who is revealed at the end to also have been listening in.
The Punisher: Marvel Comics occasionally publishes Christmas Specials focused on the Punisher, which usually feature two things; Frank dressing up as Santa, and Frank killing a lot of bad guys. Oftentimes, he does both simultaneously.
Sin City: "Silent Night," featuring Marv taking down a gang of slave traffickers, including their female leader in perhaps the only time he's ever killed a woman, in order to rescue one scared little girl and bring her back home to her mom.
Supergirl:
- In Supergirl (2005) storyline Day of the Dollmaker, Supergirl is trying to find a child kidnapper on Christmas Eve. With no concrete leads, she combs Metropolis, beating and interrogating every criminal and super-villain she meets until she manages to catch and beat down the kidnapper.
- In the DC Universe Holiday Special 2008: A Day Without Sirens, Kara Zor-El and Barbara Gordon team-up to gift Gotham City a crime-free Christmas. Not even a Kryptonian can keep Gotham City's crime down for longer than that.◊
The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special
The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic had, early in its run, four one-shot "micro-series" that focused on each individual Turtle. Both the Michaelangelo and Leonardo one-shots took place at Christmas, and featured lots of action scenes:
- In the Michaelangelo one-shot, Mike went out on Christmas Eve to enjoy the Christmas sights, play in the snow, shop for Christmas presents, adopt a homeless cat... and get involved in a high-speed car chase with gun-packing robbers who had run off with a truckload of toys that were being donated to an orphanage. The comic was eventually adapted into the episode "The Christmas Aliens" in the third season of the second animated series.
- The Leonardo one-shot is pretty much one long action scene, featuring Leonardo fighting an impossible number of Foot ninjas — interspersed with small snippets of the three other Turtles, together with April and Splinter (and Klunk the cat) making Christmas preparations. Like the Michaelangelo special, it was adapted into an episode of the second animated series, but without the Christmas elements.
- In the loosest sense of the term, the "Return to New York" three part storyline also takes place on Christmas, though it lacks any Christmas elements and is only indicated by a date on a newspaper that's easy to miss.
In issue #13 of Paperinik New Adventures "The Darkest Night", Paperinik had to fight the Evronians on Christmas Eve to rescue the people of a small village near Duckburg.
Frank Miller's RoboCop, the comic adaptation of Frank Miller's original script for RoboCop 2, takes place around Christmas. Like some elements, such as the Rehabs, it was recycled in RoboCop 3.
Santa Versus Dracula has Santa and his allies fighting against Dracula and his monsters because Drac wants Santa's job to enter any home he pleases without worrying about invites.
Subverted in Zombies Christmas Carol. After the final ghostly vision, Scrooge shaves, puts on his best suit and cane, and strides into the zombie plague in a splash page that seems it will be this... and he does exactly as he did in the original story, helping them through charity and goodwill.
Antarctic Press' The Last Christmas involves Santa Claus doing what may be his toughest assignment: to save the last child that believes in him during a Zombie Apocalypse.
In Tomahawk #138, Moon Fawn and Small Eagle get kidnapped and tortured by Indian renegades for celebrating Christmas, and it's up to Hawk and Tomahawk to rescue them.
The Christmas special of the Warrior comic book is an infamous case of this, featuring the Ultimate Warrior taking a turn as Santa Claus, as well as... other things. Horrible, horrible things.
The King in Black event has a one-shot where Doctor Doom and Iron Man have to team up to save a symbiote-infected Santa.
The 2005 Marvel Comics Holiday Special had a story in which a mechanic who never really recovered from being told Santa Claus isn't real decided to build her own robot Santa to at least help keep the illusion alive for other kids. Unfortunately, she used the body of Ultron as the base of her creation, and so "Santron" immediately declared all the Avengers to be naughty and attacked their annual Christmas party. For bonus points, the mechanic's name is Virginia.
Marvel Two-in-One: The Thing's first team-up with Ghost Rider takes place on Christmas Eve and is titled "Silent Night… Deadly Night!" It begins with Johnny Blaze coming across what appears to be the Three Wise Men and seemingly ending up in Bethlehem, while the Thing is busy celebrating Christmas with his loved ones (except Mister Fantastic, who's being a workaholic even at this time of year). Eventually, the Thing ends up at the same place as Ghost Rider and helps him solve this mystery. It turns out this was just a scheme by Miracle Man (a minor Fantastic Four villain), who brainwashed the inhabitants of an Indian reservation into believing they were part of the Nativity Story and created a child totally immaculately to show that he was absolute and could obtain godhood.
In Junkyard Joe, the present day story takes place just before Christmas and has the titular Robot Soldier fight a group of agents trying to capture him.

Fan Works

In one side story of the Alternian Nation Series, Karkat and Gamzee's first experience with Christmas involved hiding inside a mall during a storm, being discovered and fed by a security guard, and having to later drive off some thugs who had broken in and were attacking him.
A Growing Affection: Naruto and Hinata's first Yuletide together involves saving Santa from ninja puppeteers who want him to repair and upgrade their puppets.
A Certain Crazy Christmas Special: Touma must save the day when Bad Santa starts wrecking the town and kidnapping girls.
The climax of the first part of Power Rangers GPX Supercharged takes place on the morning of Christmas Eve at the State Capitol of Wisconsin. It involves as Big Badass Battle Sequence, a bomb, hostages and a Home Alone reference.
In Worldwar: War of Equals, a joint American/Canadian operation appropriately nicknamed "Operation Eve'' strikes at vulnerable occupied positions between St. Louis and Jefferson City. Ground forces are inserted into key areas and destroy Race anti-armor and air emplacement. By the time kids were waking up for gifts from old St. Nick, we gave Race forces a gift by relieving them of their territory and leave the lizards on the run.
Star trek Frontier URE 2: Christmas Special has a pair of elves recruit Ron Pinkerton, Takeshi Yamato, Jaden Takeo, and the crews of their respective ships to prevent Sela from ruining Christmas. Hilariously epic combat ensues.
Dragon Ball Z Abridged has rewritten some Dragon Ball Z movies and specials into Christmas versions:
- The Christmas Tree Of Might, the 2010 Christmas special for Dragon Ball Z Abridged.
- Played with in Lord Slug Abridged. It's not Christmas, but Goku thinks it is because of all the snow.
- Christmas 2017 saw Plan to Eradicate Christmas, which is not only set during Christmas, but also combines Dr. Raichi and Hatchiyack into one character — Santa Claus himself.
Principal Celestia Hunts the Undead: Celestia, Luna, Sunset and a few of her friends Vs. the human world's King Sombra while Christmas shopping in the mall.
Christmas Eve Murders: Vincent will commit five hits on Christmas Eve.
The Disney Loops has "The Christmas War" (recorded in its entirety in chapter 38 of the compilation), in which Danny and Adrien (both of whom hate Christmas due to family issues that come out during the holidays) create "Team Scrooge" (consisting of other Christmas-hating loopers) in order to attack The Nostalgia Critic's Christmas party, with a "Team Santa" being formed to stop them. In the end, a third group (led by Linkara) stops the fighting and talks some sense into the two of them.
A Discworld fic by A.A. Pessimal sees Ded Moroz, the Rodinian version of the Hogfather, arriving in Ankh-Morpork. Negligient Discharge charts the subsequent mayhem, involving a mischief-minded Sneguroshka, Nobby Nobbs as an air-gunner, and Ankh-Morpork's Rodinian community celebrating their midwinter festival..
In the Persona 4 fic I'm Sitting Right Behind You (And Definitely Not Peeking), the Precursor Heroes bet on when the Phantom Thieves' journey will end. Chie predicts that it will happen on Christmas exactly, and events prove her right.
Superman: House of El: Metallo makes his debut two days before Christmas, attacking the Metropolis equivalent of Rockefeller Center. When Superman arrives, Metallo is trying to chop down the massive Christmas tree with his metal hands.

Films — Live-Action

3615 code Père Noël (released in English as Dial Code Santa Claus, Deadly Games, Game Over, and Hide and Freak) is a 1989 French thriller about a young boy named Thomas who, in an attempt to communicate with Santa Claus, accidentally contacts a local criminal who finds out that his mother is the manager of a department store. The drifter sets out to rob Thomas' house while dressed as Santa, forcing Thomas into a cat-and-mouse game of survival. Notable for having allegedly inspired Home Alone (a charge that John Hughes denied), to the point where writer/director René Manzor considered suing for plagiarism.
Anna and the Apocalypse — a zombie musical set at Christmas. The titular heroine wields a candy cane lawn ornament as a zombie-bashing weapon.
Batman Returns. The main story begins with the Red Triangle Circus crashing Gotham's tree-lighting ceremony, complete with clowns with Uzis, a Gatling gun mounted on a barrel organ, a fire breather setting a toy store ablaze, and the strongman beating down a Salvation Army Santa with his own sled.
Behind Enemy Lines: Burnett's troubles begin when Admiral Reigart puts him on a reconnaissance mission, forcing him to miss the Christmas celebration on the ship.
Black Lightning (2009): The movie's climax is set during the winter holidays, and features battles across Moscow with high stakes.
The Bourne Identity takes place in December, in Switzerland and France. Aside from a wetter Paris, there's a snowy winter throughout the entire film and there are frequently seen Christmas lights and trees, and holiday season markets and events. While on the run from Treadstone assassins in the French countryside, Bourne and Marie stay at a farmhouse of her old friend and his kids, full of Christmas decorations. The five of them spend Christmas Eve dinner together, complete with typical French Christmas hits heard on the radio (including the French version of Deck the Halls). Right the next morning, instead of focusing on presents, the people at the farmhouse are besieged by the same assassin who shot dictator Wombosi mere days before. Bourne has to get creative to lure him away and take him out, then prepare a plan to go back to Paris and confront Treadstone agents on his own. The finale is set between Christmas and New Year's Eve.
Shane Black loves this trope. A few of his films he has written are set during the Christmas season or alludes to it.
- The first Lethal Weapon which starts off at the beginning of the Christmas Season and a suicide.
- Darian’s drawing in The Last Boy Scout has a Bad Santa, who is holding the head of a little girl.
- Parodied in Last Action Hero, where the climax of Jack Slater 3 is explicitly noted as taking place around Christmas.
- The Long Kiss Goodnight also takes place in that particular time of the year, and many an ass is kicked by Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson.
- Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which even has a weird party where Harmony is dressed in a Sexy Santa Dress.
- Iron Man 3 takes place in the lead-up to Christmas.
- Subverted with The Nice Guys, where only the last scene, months after all the chaos that happened, is set during Christmas.
- Averted with The Predator, where it takes place around and during Halloween.
A Christmas Horror Story has a segment that switches from straight horror to action-horror, featuring a Badass Santa battling zombified elves and eventually The Krampus at his North Pole workshop. Subverted when it turns out that he's actually a delusional Mall Santa who had a psychotic break and went on a rampage at The Mall. The elves were his co-workers and shoppers, and Krampus was the mall's manager.
The 2002 made-for-TV action flick Christmas Rush, also known as Breakaway. It plays out very much like Die Hard, only in a Chicago mall instead of a Los Angeles office building.
The Stallone movie Cobra (1986) takes place during the Christmas season, but you'd never know it unless you noticed the occasional Christmas decorations or the full-length Toys R Us ad that runs before a news segment.
Deadpool seems convinced that it's Christmas in the movie. Subverted, however, when taxi driver Dopinder says it's actually April.
The Death Race (2008) remake took place during Christmas. Lampshaded as a Pre-Mortem One-Liner during one of the races.
"Merry Christmas, asshole!"
The first two Die Hard movies. The Nostalgia Critic named the first film the greatest Christmas movie ever (the second time he made such a list). Cracked had the same opinion. As a result, it's become a popular "alternative" Christmas movie for people who think that the usual holiday classics are a bit too saccharine, such that it's even been turned into an illustrated storybook. The first movie actually gave it a justification, as Hans Gruber specifically targeted Nakatomi Plaza on Christmas Eve because the Christmas party being held that day made it that much easier to round everyone up and take them hostage.
"Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho."
The climax of Edward Scissorhands takes place on the night of a Christmas party.
Enemy of the State: Robert Dean's struggle against the NSA begins when he encounters a friend (who is carrying video evidence of the NSA's misdeeds) while purchasing a Christmas gift for his wife.
In Ernest Saves Christmas, the guy who's slated to replace Santa Claus has an acting gig for a Show Within a Show movie called Christmas Slay, which appears to be this kind of movie—and a Slasher Movie to boot. Obviously intended as satire. The production is stopped because Joe Carruthers (the guy in question) is too nice to say his character's Pre-Asskicking One-Liner, which includes an F-bomb, and infuriates the Prima Donna Director.
First Blood (1982) is set during Christmas time, probably to demonstrate that Rambo is also braving the bitter cold during his ordeal.
The French Connection doesn't make a big deal out of it, but little holiday elements like Popeye undercover dressed as Santa Claus, different store windows loaded with Christmas decorations and the bitter winter cold continually pop up.
The climax of Gangster Squad takes place during Christmas time. Including the Big Bad yelling "here comes Santy Claus!" before going to town with a machine gun.
In Getaway, Brent and his wife Leanne went to her hometown of Sofia, Bulgaria for a Christmas vacation, only for her to be kidnapped and him forced to drive around performing the kidnapper's orders to get her back.
Ghostbusters II takes place during the December holidays, with the climax taking place on New Year's Eve and ending on New Year's Day.
The eponymous creatures in Gremlins (1984) wreak havoc at Christmastime, and the heroes have to fight them off.
The Hebrew Hammer is a parody of this, being a Jewsploitation film about a Jewish Private Detective who has been brought on to save Hanukkah after a very progressive and tolerant Santa Claus is murdered and usurped by his son Damian, who wants to make it mandatory that Everyone Is Christian at Christmas. He ends up Saving Christmas on the way, with the help of the Kwanzaa Liberation Front. It's that kind of movie.
One scene in Highlander: Endgame shows that the events of the film take place around Christmastime.
The majority of the Home Alone movies takes place around Christmastime. Kid defeats gang of thieves by turning his house into a Death Course. In the first two movies, it helped set the scene for the conflict between Kevin and his family. Home Alone 3 averts this, as there are visible Christmas decorations in the airport at the beginning, and a toy given as a gift to the main character helps set the plot in motion; however, the movie is explicitly said to take place on and shortly after January 8th.
Chuck Norris' classic Invasion U.S.A. (1985) takes place at Christmastime. A suburban neighborhood celebrating it is attacked by terrorists. There's also a shootout/truck chase inside a mall full of holiday shoppers.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the only James Bond film to also be a Christmas movie. For bonus points, it had a Downer Ending.
Jingle All the Way mixes this with action comedy as Arnold and Sinbad go through a series of increasingly wild misadventures in the pursuit of the toy of the year.
Jurassic World, which starts sometime during the Christmas vacation. But Jurassic World is placed in Costa Rica and if you removed the opening scene (which is where this fact is explicitly shown) you could place it at any time of the year.
The Legend of Frenchie King, which culminates in a Cat Fight between the two leads, takes place in Christmas-time, although it's painfully obvious that it was shot in Summer-time.
The action movie Legion happens in the days before and after Christmas.
Events in Maniac Cop 2, which has a crazy killer killing and shooting up people, take place during Christmas.
Night of the Comet, where radiation from a passing comet causes an apocalypse, takes place during the week between Christmas and New Years.
No Escape (1994): The Insiders are shown celebrating Christmas at one point, and during the party, that's when the Outsiders attack.
Patch Town: The final act is AWESOME and features a full-scale rebellion against an evil toy factory. Characters dressed as Santa attack a corrupt toy executive in a Soviet-style industrial complex.
A Pistol For Ringo is a Spaghetti Western about a robbery-turned-hostage situation during Christmastime.
Prometheus takes place in late December, around Christmas time. The ship's captain Janek sets up a tabletop Christmas tree to give a sense of time and remind himself of the season.
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale and the short films that preceded it. The real reason Mall Santas exist is... shall we say... more eldritch than you would expect.
Red One: Dwayne Johnson plays the head of Red One's security detail, who teams up with a bounty hunter played by Chris Evans to rescue Santa from kidnappers and save Christmas.
RoboCop 3 takes place around the Christmas season, as there are Christmas decorations throughout the film and the famous botched attempt to rob a donut shop scene has "Here Comes Santa Claus" playing over the speakers when the would-be robber walks in.
The climactic bout between Rocky Balboa and Ivan Drago in Rocky IV takes place on Christmas Day.
The Liam Neeson action-thriller Run All Night takes place on Christmas night.
Santa with Muscles: Hulk Hogan saves an orphanage from Mad Scientists... while having Easy Amnesia and believing he's Santa Claus.
Spoofed at the beginning of Scrooged, with a fake trailer for the Made-for-TV Movie The Night The Reindeer Died starring Lee Majors as he helps a Badass Santa fight off terrorists attempting to take over the North Pole.
SHAZAM! (2019) takes place shortly before Christmas, including a very stressed (and distressed) Mall Santa.
Silent Night (2023): The film's prologue occurs on December 24 when Brian Godlock loses his son (and his voice) in a Gangland Drive-By. After getting out of the hospital, he decides to spend the rest of the year training and getting ready to kill every single member of the responsible gang on the next December 24.
Soldier takes place during Christmastime, when Sgt. Todd (played by Kurt Russell) fights his former allies to protect a village.
Violent Night is an action thriller set on Christmas Eve where Santa Claus himself gets caught in the crossfire of a home invasion.

Literature

The fifth volume of Full Metal Panic! is Die Hard on a boat on Christmas like the movie. This is actually a double ass-kicking holiday, as this is the novel that reveals that all Whispereds, including Tessa and Kaname, were born within three minutes of each other on Christmas Eve. Sousuke actually makes a point of getting Kaname a Christmas present and a birthday present.
Zigzagged in Hogfather. The driving plotline involves The Grim Reaper and his badass granddaughter Saving Christmas — and apparently ensuring the Sun will continue to rise — after a Psychopathic Manchild assassinates the Disc equivalent of Santa on the orders of an Always Frighteningly Lawful Neutral Celestial Bureaucracy. It does, however, contain something of a True Meaning of Christmas message with the revelation of what would have happened instead of the Sun rising: "A mere ball of flaming gas would have illuminated the world." They haven't been saving the world, they've been saving people's ability to make heartwarming poetry out of an uncaring universe. You have to believe in the little lies, like the Hogfather, to make the big ones — like truth, justice and mercy — a reality.
In The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, Santa's toys are stolen by creatures who want kids to receive them through evil deeds rather than good. This pisses off the Great Ak and the forest immortals, Santa's chief supporters, and a war between mythical races ensues.
The Repairman Jack novel Legacies is set shortly before Christmas; one early incident features Jack dressing up as Santa to beat the living crap out of a scumbag who stole toys from a children's AIDS clinic.
The Rivers of London novel Whispers Under Ground takes place over the Christmas season, and includes some exciting chase sequences and gun-play.
"Santa Claus vs. S.P.I.D.E.R." by Harlan Ellison. When he's not wearing the red suit, Kris looks and acts something like James Bond. And the red suit's got body armor, rockets in the boots to jump long distances, machine guns, and high-pressure flamethrowers up the sleeves.... "Ho ho ho."
Sharpe: The second act of Sharpe's Enemy takes place on Christmas Eve, as Sharpe and the Rifles take advantage of the deserter army's drunken state to launch their Roaring Rampage of Rescue.
The line of the Christmas hymn kept going through his head, another unwelcome visitor to his thoughts. "Goodwill to sinful men in shewn." Not tonight.
The fifth book in the Skulduggery Pleasant series, Mortal Coil, takes place around Christmas.
The Whateley Universe authors really like this trope. "Christmas Elves" has Fey and Generator in a fight to the death inside a Syndicate hardsite. "Ayla and the Grinch" has Phase against a serial killer that turns out to actually be a demon. "Silent Nacht" has Nacht in a half-dozen battles, being manipulated by her mother, and temporarily ascending to Godhood and freeing herself of the Bell Witch's domination. "There's an Angel in Father John's Basement" has Seraphim, "Christmas Crisis" has Tennyo, "Have Yourself an Evil Little Christmas" has most of the Bad Seeds (except Nacht, of course, and Dragonrider is elsewhere as well), "Summoning Sweeties" has Gateway and Bladedancer, "The Case of the Poisonous Patent" has Loophole and her friends, "Have Yourself a Monkey Little Christmas" has Chaka and Bladedancer, hell, even Aquerna takes on a mugger in "Straight From the Squirrel's the Mouth"... And all of these take place during the same Christmas break, and that's not even counting the waking nightmare that came at the end of Outcast Corner's trip to Australia, during which they had to fight a running battle with an immortal A-List supervillain bent on slaughtering the entire city of Darwin!
Monster Mash neo-noir Wolfman Confidential features an extended homage to both Labyrinth and Legend (1985) taking place on Christmas Day.

Live-Action TV

The Aquabats! Super Show!: The episode "Christmas! With The Aquabats!" sees The Aquabats! arriving at a village that was taken over by der Krampus, who has outlawed Christmas festivities, with the band of heroes fighting him in their usual style. Santa Claus puts a stop to the fighting near the end, but dishes out a Christmas whupping to der Krampus when he demands to be punished for his actions.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine:
- In the Cold Open of "The Pontiac Bandit Return", Det. Jake Peralta is undercover, dressed as Santa on a stakeout. Then suddenly his nemesis Doug Judy appears and Jake chases him in the very impractical costume. Then he and his partner Rosa Diaz search for him in a lot where they sell Christmas trees. After Jake gets him, they knock down a heater and some of the trees immediately catch fire. Jake, happy to have caught Judy & still dressed as Santa, sees a couple of kids that happen to be in the lot and yells at them: "Take a good look, kids. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU'RE NAUGHTY!"
- In "Yippee Kayak", Jake, Charles, and Gina are trapped in a department store on Christmas Eve as it's being robbed. Being a huge Die Hard 1 fanboy, Jake geeks out over the chance to try and live the film out for real.
Chuck versus Santa Claus is the show's first Christmas episode and the events of the day are a runaway crook taking hostage everybody at BuyMore.
- Also, Chuck versus The Santa Suit from Season 5. Originally titled "Chuck vs. the Grinch", with the titular 'Grinch' bring Shaw, who has just managed to escape prison and is now trying to destroy the CIA as revenge for being put away.
The Season 3 finale of Cobra Kai is set a week before Christmas, on the anniversary of Johnny's defeat by Daniel decades earlier. In the episode, the LaRusso home is attacked by Kreese's students, leading to a brawl between them and the other two dojos. The attack ultimately forces Daniel and Johnny into a reluctant truce against Kreese.
The made-for-TV movie The Crossing depicts the below-mentioned crossing of the Delaware and Battle of Trenton, including the popular but untrue notion that the efficacy of the ambush was due to the Hessians being fantastically hungover after a German Christmas. (In truth they were undermanned, despite several requests for British backup, and moreover did not expect Washington to throw his entire army at them in one go.)
Series 2 of Danger 5 features the eponymous team fighting Hitler at Christmas. A man in a Santa-suit is pivotal to the action. Because he's Hitler.
Doctor Who Christmas Episodes tend to have plots involving things like alien invasions, crashing spaceships, etc. In fact, Christmas episodes are extra-long and twice as epic as normal episodes, second only to season finales in terms of how they'll go all-out.
- In the McGann movie, near the end, the Doctor warns Chang Lee, "Next Christmas, take a vacation. Don't be here." However, here the Doctor is referring to San Francisco, not London.
- "The Christmas Invasion", the first proper Christmas special, features an alien invasion and a Combat by Champion for the fate of the Earth.
- "The Runaway Bride" features aliens hungry enough to eat all of humanity, and the climax involves an actual tank shooting down the villain's spaceship.
- Lampshaded in "Voyage of the Damned": The Doctor and Astrid land on Earth at Christmastime and find the city deserted. Just when you think that's the mystery of the episode, Wilf tells him the reason that the city is empty is that everyone has evacuated the city thinking that something awful is going to happen. (They're right.)
  - Lampshaded again later on in the same episode:
    The Doctor: Actually, that's not true. Christmas is a time of - of peace and thanksgiving and... What am I on about? My Christmases are always like this.
- "The Time of the Doctor" has it to an extreme level. Christmas is the name of the town, it is under constant siege by the Doctor's enemies. He teams up with the bloody Silence to fend off the horde, it is so bad. Narration indicates the siege of Christmas went on for over nine hundred years before the aged, dying Doctor decides to take them all out with The Last Dance... before, of course, getting a loophole in the laws of regeneration (much to his surprise).
Eureka became fond of doing Christmas Episodes about halfway through its run. While minor examples compared to most they could still qualify. The first had the town preparing for an air-raid when an unidentified bogie breached its airspace, cue Santa flying through town crashing into several buildings it was Taggert pioneering the scientific field of Santology. The second featured an antagonist sninja, snowman-ninja, complete with anime-style ass-kicking climax.
Christmas happens during the Farscape episode "Terra Firma". Since it's Farscape, a murderous creature kills two people and literally crashes Christmas dinner at John's dad's house.
The Flash (2014): The Christmas episode "Running to Stand Still", the Weather Wizard breaks out Captain Cold and the Trickster out of prison over the Christmas period, the three of them teaming up to form the Rogues. Their plan to kill The Flash includes the Trickster dressing up as Santa Claus and explosives disguised as presents.
In the Hart to Hart episode "'Tis the Season to Be Murdered", Jonathan and Jennifer spend the holidays investigating industrial espionage at Hartoy, a toy company Jonathan owns. Two people are murdered along the way, while Jonathan and Jennifer are attacked by killer toys such as an electronic game that's rigged to explode and a radio-controlled model airplane that fires real ammo.
Hawkeye (2021) has Clint Barton meeting his successor Kate Bishop during the holiday season, and the trailer makes sure to highlight the Christmas setting.
Any episode of Kamen Rider that airs around Christmas is bound to have some Rider kicking of ass.
- Kamen Rider had the franchise's first Christmas episode, which saw Kamen Rider dropping a mountain on a bunch of Nazis. It also featured the Final Battle with one of the major villains of the series Colonel Zol.
- The Christmas episode of Kamen Rider Wizard saw Wizard meeting Santa, saving Christmas for a bunch of orphans and kicking Phoenix's ass again while doing so.
- A more infamous example would be the Christmas episode of Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, which featured Kiriya Kujo getting killed by Genm.
The Monk Christmas episode "Mr. Monk and the Man Who Shot Santa Claus", the end of which features Monk pursuing a jewel thief and beating him with a giant candy cane yard decoration.
Mystery Science Theater 3000:
- The episode featuring Santa Claus Conquers the Martians features a host skit in which Crow presents his very own Christmas song: "Let's Have a Patrick Swayze Christmas", which combines holiday sentiment with allusions to Swayze's role in Road House (1989).
  It's my way or the highway, this Christmas at my bar.
  I'll have to smash your kneecaps if you bastards touch my car!
  I got the word that Santa has been stealing from the till.
  I think that that right jolly old elf had better make out his will!
- Riff by Joel Robinson: "Big John Call IS Santa Claus in "O Little Town of DEATHlehem!"
- Meanwhile, in the other Christmas Episode, Santa Claus (1959), the last host segment has Santa Claus and the devil Pitch duking it out in a wrestling match right in the middle of Deep 13. Dr. F and TV's Frank are pleased.
  Santa Claus: I'm here to kick ass and eat candy canes, and I'm all out of candy canes!
A Saturday Night Live sketch from the 1980-1981 season had a fake trailer for a movie called "Kung Fu Christmas", starring Caine (David Carradine's character from the show "Kung Fu", played by Carradine himself) and Bruce Lee (played by Eddie Murphy).
A Very Supernatural Christmas. In the middle of dealing with pagan spirits that murder people at Christmas in order to stay alive for one more year (and are dissonantly jolly about it), we get to see (or get mentions of) a number of Crappy Holidays that the Winchesters have suffered throughout their lives.
Super Sentai plays with this quite often - Power Rangers, not so much.
- Engine Sentai Go-onger sees the heroes team up with Santa using his magic sack to fight one of the main generals of the Gaiark. In Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, Gai goes the extra mile and merges the Red and Green Ranger Keys so he can become "Gokai Christmas". Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger had the Kyoryugers fight against Debo Yanasanta, an evil Santa monster who planned to revive the Big Bad by giving kids bad presents containing his cells.
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers did have the season 3 episode "I'm Dreaming of a White Ranger". However, we didn't see a Christmas Episode for a long time because the seasons begin in February and end in November. Power Rangers Samurai had the first ones in a long time, one each for both years it ran, but the first was a Clip Show.
- The epilogue of Power Rangers Dino Charge took place in Christmas, where they fought a Christmas/Winter themed Bad Santa monster called Heximas who turned out to be the last survivor of Sledge's outlaws.
- The last episode of the first season of Power Rangers Beast Morphers takes place during Christmas and has Scrozzle going into a festivity-ruining rampage in the city over the rangers destroying his Cyber Dimension in a previous episode ("Tis the season for REVENGE!"). After trapping the Grid Battleforce Rangers inside holiday ornaments, it's up to their Beast Bots must save them and the city.
The Supergirl (2015) Season 3 midseason finale "Reign" features Kara's first confrontation with the titular villain, which happens on Christmas.
Ultraman Ace has an episode entitled Resurrection! The Father of Ultra, in which Yapool lends the ice monster Snowgiran to the youkai Namahage so the latter can enact his scheme to punish Japan for their embracement of the western holiday of Christmas. Fortunately, Ultraman Ace is here to save the day, and so is his adoptive father who disguises himself as Santa!
Ultraman Taro had an episode called "The Ultra Christmas Tree", in which Ultraman Taro battles an evil alien named Terrorist, who has come to Earth on Christmas Eve for some destruction-wreaking and murders the friendly, Christmas-loving alien Miracle.
The fourth and final season of The Umbrella Academy (2019) takes place on Christmas, and naturally features its fair share of (usually extremely bloody) ass-kicking. Notably, one episode involves a major battle breaking out at a small-town Christmas fair, pitting the Hargreeves siblings against an army of gun-toting Mooks, many of whom are dressed in elf or Santa suits.
Wonder Woman (1975): "The Deadly Toys" features Frank Gorshin as a Wicked Toymaker who creates robots to duplicate real people — including Wonder Woman! A Twin Switch saves the day. It finishes with Wonder Woman spray-painting "Merry Christmas" on the store window and signing it: W.W.
An episode of Xena: Warrior Princess that takes place around Winter Solstice, with her and Gabrielle acting out Scrooge's Christmas story.

Music

"Weird Al" Yankovic:
- "Christmas At Ground Zero" (from Polka Party!) has a nuclear war happen on Christmas. The lyrics mix the festivities of the season with the horror of nuclear war.
- "The Night Santa Went Crazy" (from Bad Hair Day) has Santa go on a rampage due to the stresses of the job.
Yogi Yorgesson "I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas":
Back in the corner the radio is playing
And over the racket Gabriel Heatter is saying
"Peace on earth everybody and good will toward men"
And yust at that moment someone slugs Uncle Ben.
"Santa's Gonna Kick Your Ass" by The Arrogant Worms
On mp3.com, a comedy team called Prime Example did a spoof advertisement for the ultimate Christmas TV special "Violent Night" in which Santa Claus, Rudolph, Frosty, Charlie Brown, and the Little Drummer Boy team up to save Christmas from a war on Christmas by the Grinch, Ebenezer Scrooge, the Abominable Snowman, and Satan. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a Terminator-esque Santa Claus with an assault rifle, and Clint Eastwood plays a Dirty Harry-esque Ebenezer Scrooge with a shotgun... coming up next on Fox!
"Uncle Bernie's Farm" by The Mothers of Invention on their Absolutely Free album largely consists of an inventory of dangerous, violent toys.
The fatal shooting that apparently inspired the classic folk song "Stagger Lee" happened on December 25, 1895 in St. Louis.
Just take any Christmas song, and make it metal or hard rock.
- For example, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's rendition of ''Carol of the Bells''. (Though if you take the album it was first released on into account—consider the song's official name: "Sarajevo 12/24"—the "ass-kicking" in this song is not a good thing.)
- Or Bob Rivers's "I Am Santa Claus", a take on Black Sabbath's "Iron Man".
- The Kinks' "Father Christmas" embodies the spirit with the mention of machine guns and threatening to beat up the title character.
- "Merry Xmas Everybody" by Slade counts as this sonically, if not lyrically in parts.
A Christmas revision of Convoy by C.W. McCaul has the truckers running a roadblock set up by the Grinch.
The gory and hilarious claymation video for "Mr Frosty Man" by Sufjan Stevens, about a snowman protecting a boy from a horde of zombies.
The song "Oi to the World" (originally done by The Vandals and later Covered Up by No Doubt) details the story of a punk and a skinhead who get into a massive brawl on Christmas day. While they both end up abandoned by their comrades, the spirit of the holiday wins out; the punk patches up the skinhead's wounds and they end up burying the hatchet at the pub after escaping from the police.

Mythology and Religion

The Bible: The original Christmas — that is to say, the birth of Jesus Christ, took place against a backdrop of Roman occupation, mass infanticide, and Jesus' parents fleeing the country with their infant child.
Some also interpret Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation as saying that the War in Heaven, which is the beginning of the end for Satan and the forces of Hell, will begin on Christmas Day.

Professional Wrestling

A time honored tradition in professional wrestling is putting on a show in front of soldiers for Christmas, such as when The Wild Samoans' World Xtreme Wrestling Promotion started going on tour to Afghanistan in 2002, though the most famous of these was WWE Smackdown's Christmas in Iraq, which got its own television special, where the requested present of several troops was "Choke slam me Big Show''.
WCW's biggest PPV of the year, Starrcade, was regularly held around Christmastime in December. They also had a Clash Of Champions special in December 1988 called "Season's Beatings".
TNA has its Silent Night, Bloody Night. Christmas chaos in a cage, Double north pole match, Santa's workshop knockout street fight, Grab the reindeer, a tree made of barbed wire in the titular silent night bloody night match.
V.I.P. Wrestling's Jingle Brawl.
UCW Zero's Seasons Beatings
While not on Christmas specifically, Ring Warriors Bombshells and Jingle Bells December 15th, 2012 show was Christmas themed, and it was also the show where Chief Operating Officer Howard Brody cut ties with the National Wrestling Alliance, including the wrestlers they kept beating the NWA's.
Vendetta Pro Wrestling's Winter Wonder Slam had/has a Christmas theme with the tagline "It will be anything but a silent night.'' Vintage Dragon also came up with his own gimmick match, the Holiday Havoc match.
On December 27, 1989, the WWF broadcast the PPV event No Holds Barred: The Match/The Movie. Following the film was a steel-cage match taped on December 12, where Hulk Hogan and Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake took on The Mighty Zeus and "Macho Man" Randy Savage. One of the ad taglines was, "Why have a Merry Christmas....when you can have a No Holds Barred Christmas!?"
On the December 20 (taped December 18), 2001 WWE SmackDown, The Rock cut a promo on Test set to "The Twelve Days of Christmas.":
"On the night Test faces The Great One
This is what he'll see
12 Sharpshooters stinging
11 Eyebrows raising
10 Spines-a-busting
9 Noggins knocking
8 Kicks-a-kicking
7 Punches punching
6 Suplex smashing
5 Seconds of the people chanting The Rock's name
[Rocky, Rocky, Rocky]
4 Rock Bottoms
3 People's Elbows on your
2 Buck teeth
and an ass-kicking all over New Orleans!"

Tabletop Games

"How Orcus Stole Christmas", a multi-system adventure module by third-party publisher Frog God Games. The titular demon lord tries to ruin a Christmas feast (or the setting's Christmas-equivalent) and the player-characters have to stop him by force.
The infamous Risus adventure "Kringle All the Way", which starts with versions of Santa representing the Seven Deadly Sins setting out to assassinate Ebenezer Scrooge, Jesus, and Christmas shopping so he'll have the holiday to himself.
Santa's Soldiers from Deep 7 Games is a parody of the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials where the player characters are paramilitary commandos...that happen to be cute little Christmas Elves. The whole idea is that Santa is a seemingly naive fellow, oblivious to the many threats on his head. Missus Claus, however, is a terrifying spymaster and combatant who wants to make sure her husband is well-protected but remains sweet and innocent.
The Spirit of the Century supplement Spirit of the Season allows you to apply a Christmas (and/or Hanukkah) theme to all the two-fisted action of the original.

Theatre

Tsukiuta Stage Act 7: Cyber-Dive Connection is this, in sexy Cyber Goth costumes with new cyber swords, scythes, bows, etc. The main characters, 12 world-hopping boy band members based on the months of the year, are asked to enter a digital world to save Santa - it's heavy on video game references, light on plot, and more of a playground for the series to experiment with combining technology and live theatre.

Video Games

The bombing of Valais Airbase and the subsequent Operation Valkyrie in Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War take place on December 25, 1995.
From its release up until 2016, Angry Birds Seasons would release Christmas-themed episodes once a year. Individually, they are Seasons' Greedings (2010), Wreck the Halls (2011), Winter Wonderham (2012), Arctic Eggspedition (2013), On Finn Ice (2014), Ski or Squeal (2015), and Ragnahog (2016), each one complete with the explosions, pig-popping, and fury the franchise is best known for.
The final level of Army Men: Sarge's Heroes is a living room decked out in Christmas decorations.
Azure Striker Gunvolt 3: The events of "Holy Night XIII" take place on Christmas Eve, when the Primal Dragon BB went berserk (at least by Kirin's reckoning) due to getting stood up by a possible date. Dragon Radiation did the rest of the job, and now there's a Grim Reaper Adept flying around terrorizing the neighborhood, made worse by how the Sumeragi peacekeepers (annoyed at being called on job during a holiday) and robots that evacuated citizens before things got worse end up infected by his Dragon Radiation and start running amock themselves. This forces Kirin and GV to head in and neutralize/calm down all hostiles.
Batman: Arkham Origins takes place on Christmas Eve, with the clock hitting midnight and thus making it actual Christmas Day about halfway through the story.
Battle Chronicle: During a Christmas event, a distorted ice sculpture of Loki comes to life and starts attacking, leading to a boss fight where it needs to be destroyed.
Bayonetta 2 opens with Bayonetta doing Christmas shopping. In fact, the entirety of the game after the Prologue takes place on Christmas Day.
Boogie Wings have a stage titled "Merry Merry Christmas", set in Christmas Eve, with plenty of Christmas ornaments and decorations dotted all over the stage while you destroy hordes and hordes of enemies in the foreground. With a cheery 8-bit rendition of "Joy to the World" as background music and a gigantic Robot Santa called "Satan Claus" serving as the boss.
The third headhunter DLC from Borderlands 2, "How Marcus Saved Mercenary Day". What else would you expect from Christmas on Pandora?
The final two chapters of the Soviet campaign in Call of Duty: Finest Hour take place on December 24, 1942.
While CarnEvil likely does not take place during Christmas time, the Rickety Town level has a distinct Christmas theme throughout most of it, likely having being pulled from somewhere else and added to the Amusement Park of Doom. It has elf monster enemies, festive background music, and a Bad Santa boss at the end of it.
The first Empire mission in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is an attack on a Russian village during New Year's Eve, which is when Christmas is celebrated in the Russian Orthodox calendar.
Oleg: What kind of commander are you? Attacking this village on New Years! I will put you down quick so we still have time to celebrate.
Crisis Beat takes place on Christmas Eve.
Daze Before Christmas has Santa saving the holiday from a group of villains.
Dead Rising 4 is to take place around Christmas time, with the reveal trailer playing a cover of Jungle Bell Rock, and showing Frank West tying zombies to a Christmas tree with the lights. However, in the actual game, the zombies wiped out Willamette during Christmas time, but Frank and Brad don't investigate the town until January. With few living people left, the Christmas decorations are still there.
Deathsmiles II and its console version IIX are Danmaku!! shooters themed around and set during Christmas. Even the OST samples popular Christmas songs, such as "Joy to the World" for the boss theme.
While Dragalia Lost had a Dragonyule-themed event starting out, its sequel - The Great Dragonyule Offensive - is this. Lily and Victor are dispatched to a remote lake to protect the nearby villages from invading Imperials, and both of them dress up as Saint Starfall while they dispense exploding presents and all manner of badassery to the invaders... and actual presents to the villagers and surrendering soldiers.
The Duke Nukem 3D expansion Duke: Nuclear Winter has Duke Nukem going out to save Christmas when the aliens join forces with the Feminist Elven Militia and Santa Claus ends up becoming Brainwashed and Crazy.
ESP Ra.De. begins on Christmas Eve of 2018 and ends on the day itself, as evidenced by the Christmas trees in J-B 5th's intro and the In-Universe Game Clock if you turn on the stage progress widget in the PS4 and Switch ports.
Extermination (2001) takes place on Christmas Eve 2005 in an antarctic research facility taken over by an aggressive, mutagenic bacterium.
In Fear Effect 2, the game takes place at or around Christmas, before ending just after New Year's has started.
The Tempest Trial event "A Gift Of Peace" in Fire Emblem Heroes takes place during the Ylissean Winter Festival and sees Winter Chrom, Robin, Lissa, and Tharja team up with Masked Marth to save it from the Tempest.
In The Firemen, The D-sector fire brigade spend their merry Christmas time avoiding and extinguishing all manner of fire and explosions, as well as busting up rampaging security robots.
Garden Gnome Carnage, it's all about beating down Christmas elves who are trying to scale your building and deliver Christmas presents. And its sequel Hyper Princess Pitch where you invade mecha-Santa's toy factory and kill/destroy everything you see.
The prologue to Grand Theft Auto V takes place on a freezing December night in 2004. In Ludendorff, North Yankton's bank, decorations festoon the lobby, and a snowstorm is moving through town. It's a perfect night for a heist that culminates in an epic gunfight and police chase into the countryside.
The Hitman: Blood Money level "You Better Watch Out" has Agent 47 assassinating a couple of targets at a Christmas party being held at totally-not the Playboy Mansion.
Holly-Day Ice-Spionage: is all about forcing agents from a rival organization into attending your company's failed Christmas party by freezing them.
Infected starts with zombies crashing the Tree Lighting Ceremony in New York City and keeps going from there.
Every December is Crimbo in Kingdom of Loathing (even though the in-game calendar can march on for 2-3 months during it.) During the event, it's regarded as tradition that Uncle Crimbo (the local version of Santa Claus) will royally screw things up and call upon adventurers to pull his chestnuts off the fire. This has included fighting off two different Alien Invasions, a hostile takeover by mutants, a hostile *corporate* takeover where the ass-kicking came from physically fighting the boredom of an office job, giant robots, and a massive protest over the entire thing that culminates in fighting an Eldritch Abomination representing Nature and the Anthropomorphic Personification of Communism. Stocking stuffers are usually buffing items and a couple collectibles, Uncle Crimbo's gifts are usually useless novelty items, but nicer rewards come directly from doing what adventurers do — beating things up and taking their stuff.
Referenced in Left 4 Dead 2 with the in-universe band, the Midnight Riders, and their Christmas song you can find in-game. According to background info, the band had always hated the idea of doing charity music, but years later they were forced into making a Christmas album in exchange for avoiding 30 thousand hours of community service, cramming it out in an hour. The end result is the song "All I Want For Christmas (is to kick your ass)", which is about kicking Santa's ass after he steals your girl.
In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II, while there's no mention of that holiday being celebrated in Zemuria, Celdic is razed on December 24th, and Class VII goes after the responsible party on the 25th. The battle to liberate the capital takes place on the 31st.
Like a Dragon: Many games in the franchise happen to take place in December.
- Yakuza 1 (and its remake) take place around Christmas 2005. This results in the occasional Sexy Santa Dress around the red light district, a girl trying to sell matches to get some extra money to get a Christmas gift for her crush, and Kashiwagi quipping him bringing in The Cavalry is a giant Christmas present for the Shimano Family. In The Stinger of Kiwami, Haruka even asks about how long Kiryu believed in Santa.
- Yakuza 2 and its remake, set In-Universe a year later, follows suit. There are some areas that are decorated for Christmas, Kiryu is tasked with finding Santa Claus in a sub-story, and one of the girls in the gravure studio mini-game wears a Santa costume while saying "Merry Christmas" to the player. The original Yakuza 2 used "Silent Night" as its credits theme, but wasn't retained for the remake.
- Yakuza 5 returns to being set during Christmas 2012, with Sapporo being the most blatant city to celebrate it thanks to their winter festival. Yakuza 6 also returns to Christmas, being set during December 2016.
- Yakuza 0, the Prequel to the first game, takes place on December 9, 1988, with some mentions of the holidays being made by various NPCs.
- The spin-off subseries Judgment and its sequel Lost Judgment are set during Christmas 2018 and 2021 respectively, with both games spilling well into the new year for their finales.
Merry Gear Solid is the result of giving a Christmas theme to the twisted world of Metal Gear.
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake takes place on Christmas.
Parasite Eve (1998) begins on Christmas Eve, though the game itself takes place over the course of five days.
The deadline for the quasi-final confrontation against Adachi and Ameno-Sagiri in Persona 4 shares the same date as final boss battle of Persona 5, also during Christmas Eve.
The final boss battle of Persona 5 takes place on Christmas Eve. The protagonist's 11th-Hour Superpower being the persona Satanael has spawned jokes about Satan saving Christmas.
The free (and brutal) expansion to QP Shooting, Xmas Shooting and its commercial modernized remake, takes place during Christmas Eve as its protagonist, a bunny girl Santa Claus apprentice named Aru, tries to retrieve the stolen Christmas present in time for delivery.
The true ending of RayCrisis reveals that Operation: RAYFORCE, a mission to destroy the Earth after the Con-Human took over it, takes places during Christmas Eve.
The Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad map Commissar's House takes place on Christmas Day. For bonus points, successfully capturing an area as the Soviets nets you an achievement called "Fighting The War on Christmas".
Resident Evil – Code: Veronica takes place on December 27-28.
Resident Evil 6: The Edonia chapters of Chris and Jake's respective campaigns all take place on Christmas Eve and end on Christmas Day. It's not given much attention, since they're on the other side of the world and in a war zone.
Resonance of Fate: Chapter 13 has a Christmas-themed mission in which The Trio gives presents to orphans in the square, in their ass-kicking Gun Fu flair.
Saints Row IV has the DLC missions "How the Saints Saved Christmas", which applies the series's action insanity to this trope, from a Bad Santa to Boss turning from The Grinch to Saving Christmas for a story of, well... Christmas has everything you could possibly want.
A mission pack for StarCraft I was a retelling of How the Grinch stole Christmas with the Zerg Swarm standing in for the Grinch and a terran colony for Whoville.
The "Falling Wonder" story of Acceleration of SUGURI X-Edition, the former Shifu Brand — Saki, Iru, Nanako, Kae, and Kyoko — try to throw a party for Suguri and Hime to make amends taking part in Shifu's schemes, only for an android duplicate known as NoName that he created prior suddenly crashes the party and orders his creator's subordinates around to fight each other as part of his harem.
Super Robot Wars W loves this one, as they have the Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz finale set on a year's Christmas day, and the Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid finale on the next year's Christmas Eve. They also have levels set on both New Year's Eves, too. And one in St. Valentine.
Surprisingly averted in Team Fortress 2 proper; despite four straight years of Halloween maps and three annual "Australian Christmas"/"Smissmas" events that add "festive" items to the game, no official map has ever been released that takes place at Christmas. The supplementary comic "A Smissmas Story", however, fits the bill pretty well.
Terraria has the endgame Frost Moon event, where the player has to fight off waves of Christmas-themed enemies, with notable mentions going to the bosses: a living Christmas tree, an Ice Queen, and a mechanized "Santank". Appropriately, its soundtrack features christmas bells and chimes backed up by electric guitar.
In Twisted Metal, the titular Vehicular Combat Blood Sport is held annually on Christmas Day. Naturally, this results in a lot of vehicular death and destruction.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is set near Christmas in Seattle in the year 2024, with a war brewing between the Anarchs of the city and the ruling Camarilla.
Although the exact date in The Walking Dead (Telltale) Season 2 is left unclear, it is implied that one of the game's episodes takes place on Christmas since it's winter time, the group is huddled together near the fireplace, the Christmas tree is decorated, and Clementine's group is fighting for their lives against zombies and threatening people out in the snow.

Visual Novels

Snatcher takes place in the last week of December, Jingle Bells plays in the Alton Plaza area and your contact, Napoleon, appears before you dressed in a Santa outfit at one point.
Muv-Luv Alternative: When's the best time "A single child could give hope to humanity"... by deploying a massive army of mecha onto a BETA controlled island in Japan and using a giant floating weapon armed with a Charged Particle Cannon to kill thousands upon thousands of said BETA? Why that'd be Christmas Day, 2001. Of course, nothing going right ever.
In Dies Irae, Ren's final fight against Reinhard takes place during Christmas Eve. Given that this fight is something Reinhard has been looking forward to for decades, he can't help but cheer Ren on.
Reinhard: Frohe Weihnachten. (Merry Christmas)

Webcomics

Far Out There has "Bridget and Alphonse's Horrifying Christmas".
The current page image comes from Full Frontal Nerdity.
- They later played as competing Santas vying for dominance as "Krampitallica", "Santa Copypaste", and "Claus Capital LLC".
This El Goonish Shive, sketchbook strip features Ellen and Nanase each wearing a Sexy Santa Dress and fighting elves.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: Captain Chanukah vs. Santa Claus.
Sluggy Freelance has some epic confrontations between Santa Claus and Bun-bun, starting with Bun-bun trying to kill Santa every Christmas because of an unspecified grudge, and culminating in the Holiday Wars where Bun-bun attempts to take over all of the holidays and fights a final battle against an alien monster Santa.

Web Original

The Nightmare Before Christmas Who: Skellington's Revenge, a YouTube Poop that turns The Nightmare Before Christmas into a Crisis Crossover with waves of characters teaming up to stop Jack Skellington from taking over Christmas with the help of a demonic rabbit monster.
Santa-Fu
Vendetta: A Christmas Story
Santaman: The Patron Saint of Justice.
The fourth arc of The Adventure Zone: Balance takes place on Candle Nights, after the Bureau's Mad Scientist accidentally transmogrifies his lab into the titular Crystal Kingdom. Snow and ice are a recurring hazard throughout the adventure, but the date is largely forgotten about until the very end.
- Additionally, The Candlenights in Tacoma! liveshow, where Merle becomes Santa and the three have to enter a dangerous ice dungeon to give presents to a sad, lonely ogre boy living there.
The 2017 Nostalgia Critic Christmas Month Cold Open features Critic, Tamara, and Malcolm in a spectacular, grueling battle to save Earth from the "Christmasians" (half-skeleton half-Xenomorph creatures).
The season one finale of Wolf359 takes place on Christmas, with Minkowski broadcasting that she's used the last of the turkey for Christmas dinner. However, things go south VERY fast after that as Hilbert mutinies, takes over Hera, attempts to kill Minkowski and nearly knocks out Eiffel.
The Final Battle of Dino Attack RPG took place only a few days before Christmas. This was acknowledged by several Dino Attack agents who, fearing they might not survive the battle, decided to celebrate Christmas during the battle.
In We Are All Pokémon Trainers, the fight against Nihilist Soul and Noir (evil aspects of Tagg and Fool) inside Tagg's mindscape takes place on Christmas Eve.
The Chronicles of Oz's adaptation of The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus takes the war between the Immortals and Awgwas a step further and has it actually take place on Christmas Eve in conjunction with Claus's first Christmas toy run in the Emerald City, as making children happy weakens the Awgwas and their powers. This scale tipping ultimately forces King Awgwa to try and kill Claus himself in the Emerald City palace.
The first installment of Ayupan x Bloody Bunny takes place during a Christmas concerrt for Ayupan. The Vampire Lord and his minions try to ambush her during the concert, but she and Bloody Bunny are able to push back against them while also keeping the audience fooled.
This piece from McSweeney’s presents the events of Die Hard 1 from the perspective a Nakatomi employee, who questions whether this is "a Christmas hostage situation or a hostage situation that just happens to occur during Christmas?" They ultimately conclude that since Christmas created the conditions for the hostage crisis and Holly and John end up getting back together, it counts as a Christmas hostage situation.
In the Dom Fera's Christmas-themed series, Deck'd, there are alot of fight scenes in animated form including this one
DEATH BATTLE!: Omni-Man and Homelander duke it out on Christmas Day. The victor even uses "Merry Christmas" as a Bond One-Liner.
Sonic Zombie: The first episode of the series takes place on Christmas, in which Sonic and co. must fend off an army of zombies.

Western Animation

The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police: In "Christmas, Bloody Christmas", the Freelance Police team up with Sam's Granny Ruth to contain a prison break on Christmas Eve.
American Dad!:
- The show typically has a rather surreal Christmas Episode, but "Rapture's Delight" takes the cake, with a bizarre crossover parody of Left Behind and homage to Mad Max 1 and Escape from New York. After the Rapture, badass Jesus recruits a grizzled, bitter, hook-handed Stan on one last mission to raid the Antichrist's lair and rescue Francine using lots of guns and explosives. It must be seen to be believed.
- In "For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls", Steve accidentally kills Santa, so the family buries his body in the woods. Only, Santa wasn't quite dead, and using the powers of science Santa is healed, only to swear revenge on the Smiths. This eventually leads to a bloody battle between the Smith family and Santa and his army of elves. Although the battle is cut short because Santa has to leave at daybreak, he promises to return to kill them next year.
- In "Minstrel Krampus", Steve's excessive brattiness causes him to be taken by Krampus, with whom he forms a kind relationship with. Santa comes and kills Krampus because the latter punishes naughty children and thus cut into Santa's children count. In the end Stan's dad Jack takes Krampus's place.
- "Ninety North, Zero West" shows that Santa is a complete maniac. He kidnaps children to use as forced labor in order to dig out a hug mine so he can summon Humbaba and become all-powerful. Jack takes over Santa's palace while the Smiths leave with the surviving children and Santa crawls out of the ruins.
Amphibia: The episode “Froggy Little Xmas” culminates in Anne, her parents, and the Plantars battling a giant Santa robot controlled by King Andrias.
Arthur Christmas has elements of this. A variety of misunderstandings lead to NORAD thinking that Arthur's attempt to deliver a present for a kid that was (accidentally) left out of Santa's list is an alien invasion, which leads to the armies of the world unleashing all of their available firepower in order to "save Christmas".
Beavis and Butt-Head spoofed this with them flipping through channels, including a show where RoboCop saves Christmas.
Buzz Lightyear of Star Command has the episode "Holiday Time". It's a generic "villain steals Christmas" plot with a fight scene between Zurg and Buzz Lightyear featuring Bullet Time and backed by a pounding techno track.
One Codename: Kids Next Door episode was trying to stop The Delightful Children from Down the Lane from making Christmas only for them, while everyone else got stuck with Substitute Teacher Day. It was also an Affectionate Parody of Marvel Comics, complete with Stan Lee-style narration and a Super Team of Christmas Elves based on the X-Men.
Danny Phantom did a lot of fighting on Christmas... Although it was all in rhyme.
The Darkwing Duck Christmas Episode, "It's a Wonderful Leaf". Sure enough, it is aggression from Christmas shopping that drives Bushroot to be The Grinch.
DC Animated Universe:
- Batman: The Animated Series:
  - "And now, the Christmas Special nobody wants to see, but everyone will watch. It's Christmas with the Joker!" Joker breaks out of Arkham on Christmas Eve and challenges Batman via a channel takover to rescue his hostages by midnight. Of course, Batman also has to handle reprogrammed Christmas toy robots and some Trainstopping for kicks.
  - There's also the second Christmas special "Holiday Knights", with three stories set over the Christmas to New Year period. The first story has Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy kidnap Bruce Wayne, the second has Batgirl, Harvey Bullock and Renee Montoya fighting Clayface in a shopping mall on Christmas Eve, and the third has Batman and Robin stopping Joker from killing thousands of people at the New Year countdown in Gotham Square.
- Zig-zagged in the Justice League Christmas episode. Clark brings Martian Manhunter to the Kent farm, Flash finds some orphans the year's most popular toy but had a fight with the Ultra-Humanite in the process, and John (Green Lantern) takes Shayera (Hawkgirl) sledding, which turns into a super-powered Snowball Fight. Shayera then shows John what she does for fun - visit alien bars and start fights. The episode ends with them (and the rest of the brawlers) passed out, sleeping peacefully.
Deconstructed in Dexter's Laboratory in "Dexter vs. Santa's Claws". He hunts down Santa Claus who he regards as an intruder. His family is not pleased that he has ruined Christmas again.
The Christmas episode of Evil Con Carne is this. Hector the brain steals Santa's body in a plan to take over the world with mind control devices in all the toys. He didn't count on Rubert the muscular green-nosed reindeer helping to save the day and Santa managing to break free of his control thanks to Rubert's words.
Rubert: Merry Christmas, suckers!
Parodied on Family Guy with Kiss Save Santa, because everyone knows "Pterodactyls can't stand the screech on an electric guitar."
Futurama: Two Christmas specials with a killer robot Santa and a sack full of ammunition-related puns ("your mistletoe is no match for my T.O.W. missile"). Plus this shows up again in the animated film Bender's Big Score, including the song "This Trinity's Goin' to War" when Robot Santa used his toy workshop on Neptune to manufacture weapons, with the help of Kwanzaabot and the Chanukah Zombie.
- Not to mention the finale of broadcast season six "The Futurama Holiday Spectacular" that has not only a Christmas storyline but also action-filled Robanukah and Kwanzaa.
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero had "Cobra C.L.A.W.s Are Coming to Town", which played this for all it's worth. It starts off with Cobra invading the Joes' base on Christmas, and ends with a showdown between the Joes and Cobra using each other's weapons and equipment.
The He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983)/She-Ra: Princess of Power crossover Christmas Movie had the twins and their allies fighting to protect two Earth children from Horde Prime because of the villain's fear of their "Christmas Spirit." (To be fair, when being evil is your stock in trade you don't want people to be happy, anyway.) The day is saved, of course... by Skeletor! Apparently, Horde Prime was right to worry about the Christmas Spirit being infectious.
Kaeloo: Episodes 103 and 104, a Multi-Part Episode, takes place during Christmas and has Kaeloo, Stumpy and Mr. Cat try to rescue Quack Quack, who had been kidnapped by Olaf.
Kim Possible: In "A Very Possible Christmas", Ron goes off on his own to stop Dr. Drakken so Kim can spend the holiday with her family. It doesn't go too well, but everything works out in the end.
RoboCop: Alpha Commando has the episode, "Oh Tannenbaum, Whoa Tannenbaum", where Neumeier's psycho ex-girlfriend created robotic elf dolls to make actual shopping miserable in order to boost online sales and goes after Neumeier.
Robot Chicken once did a Christmas sketch in which Goku and Gohan from Dragon Ball Z go to the North Pole to fight a half-Santa, half-snowman monster. Eventually Mrs. Claus morphs into what Tetsuo becomes at the end of AKIRA and Santa resolves never to visit Japan ever again.
The one-shot Christmas special Santa vs. the Snowman features the eponymous snowman, envious of Santa's popularity, and his armies of minions facing off against Santa's elves and nutcracker mecha. It's all played as over-the-top comedy, and other than the non-sentient snow minions nobody really gets hurt.
South Park:
- The very first South Park ever made, a Web Animation, was Jesus and Santa having a knock-down, drag-out fight.
- Parodied with "Red Sleigh Down".
- Also "Woodland Critter Christmas", where not only does Stan battle a mountain lion, but a bunch of animals give birth to the Antichrist, forcing Santa to gun them all down with a shotgun. Subverted, though, as it's all a story Cartman is telling in class.
The Spectacular Spider-Man has an episode where Spidey has to fight the entire Sinister Six on Christmas Eve. And thanks to burning his tongue on some hot chocolate, the villains can't understand what he's saying.
The episode "The Christmas Aliens" of the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series features Michelangelo going out on Christmas Eve to do some last-minute shopping while his family prepare for a big Christmas party, and ending up fighting against criminals who are stealing toys that were supposed to go to an orphanage. The story's an expanded version of the Michaelangelo one-shot comic from the original Mirage comic.
Transformers: Animated: "Human Error". Soundwave reappears for the first time since season one and traps the Autobots in a Lotus-Eater Machine simulation in which they are all human, so he can turn them into Decepticons. Sari recruits a bunch of second-string characters to help free them, and it all ends in a literal example of Autobots, Rock Out!.
The Venture Bros.' Christmas special has Brock, dressed as Santa, in a no-holds-barred fight with the party-crasher Krampus.

Real Life

George Washington leading the Continental Army across the Delaware Christmas Night 1776 before attacking and decisively winning the Battle of Trenton the next morning. Popular legend claims the Hessians were too hungover from their boozy German Chistmas to put up a good fight, but in spite of some Continental officers speculating that this would help, it is only a legend. The Hessians had been tipped off that Washington was up to something and were on their guard, but unfortunately for them, the British had written off the Continental Army as Not Worth Killing and refused Hessian requests to reinforce Trenton. The Hessians were both undermanned and caught off-guard by the sheer magnitude of the Continental assault, and the resulting Curb-Stomp Battle made the story easy to believe.
Defied during the first year of World War I, wherein the soldiers on both sides got out of the trenches voluntarily stopped the war, without any such orders from command, to have a real Christmas. They played football (European style) in the no man's lands between the trenches. There are also stories of decorating trees and exchanging gifts.
- One group took advantage of this to capture a strategic point, to the shock of everyone.
- Also averted in 1916, when German and Canadian soldiers near Vimy Ridge exchanged gifts.
- Usually played straight in the later years, as the officers would not allow the soldiers to fraternize with the enemy. Especially on the Italian front, where the Austro-Hungarians were furious at their Italian allies staying neutral at the start of the war and later entering on the other side and were fighting to defend their homeland from an invasion, while on the final Christmas (about two months after the Austro-Hungarians broke through at Caporetto) the Italians were fighting like possessed to take back their own invaded lands.
World War II:
- The Battles of Wake Island and Hong Kong in the Pacific Theatre. The Japanese won the former on December 23, and the latter on December 25, 1941.
- The Battle of Ortona in the European Theatre, started on December 20, fought during Christmas and won by Canadian forces on December 28, 1943.
- The Battle of Stalingrad lasted from summer 1942 to February 1943 without any Christmas truce.
- The "Battle of the Bulge" began the week before Christmas 1944 and ended in January 1945 with an Allied victory.
  - Defied for at least one night by a group of American and German soldiers meeting in the Ardennes forest on Christmas, both seeking shelter from a snowstorm, the elderly German woman who lives there didn't allow them to fight in any way, and it ends with them singing Christmas carols together, even though they don't understand each other's language. It was made into a movie, titled Silent Night.
Hanukkah: if you don't know, this is a Jewish holiday at about the same time of the year as Christmas (and tends to absorb elements thereof by cultural osmosis) that commemorates ass-kicking. Ass-kicking might happen in Hanukkah Episodes in fiction too.
During The American Civil War, General Sherman captured Savannah, GA days before Christmas 1864 and presented it to President Lincoln as a Christmas present.
In the Sendling Christmas Massacre of 1705, almost three thousand Bavarian rebels tried to storm the city of Munich while it was occupied by Austrian troops, only to be betrayed, surrounded, forced to surrender, and massacred in the same night. Still widely known as the Sendlinger Mordweihnacht (Sendling Murder Christmas).
Even though it involved two Communist countries with deep Buddhist heritages, it's worth mentioning that Vietnam sent about 150,000 troops in to invade Cambodia on Christmas Day 1978. It took the Vietnamese just two weeks to overthrow the Khmer Rouge government.
The Romanian Revolution, which started as a series of protests before it escalated to fighting in the streets where revolutionaries overthrew the Communist regime lasted from the 15th to 25th of December 1989. Ending with the executions of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu on Christmas Day.

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