Boy Meets World: The Best Holiday Episodes, Ranked According To IMDb

It’s a truth universally acknowledged among TV fans that family shows and sitcoms love a good holiday episode. Whether it’s Christmas, Halloween, or Valentine’s Day, there’s something great about seeing just what could go wrong (or right) for a group of TV characters focused on a single festive event. The longer a show goes on, the more holiday episodes they have.

While not every season features every holiday, Boy Meets World did a pretty good job at touching on subjects associated with many of them – or by simply making the holiday itself a background note for the regular antics of Cory Matthews and his friends. According to IMDb, most of the best holiday episodes center on Christmas for the series, but there are a few other episodes that rank pretty high as well.

10 S6E16 – “My Baby Valentine” (7.6)

Kicking off the best holiday episodes of the show is actually the start of one of the most dramatic two-parters. While Cory wants to spend Valentine’s Day with Topanga, she insists on giving his mother a baby shower since Amy is seven months pregnant. Cory takes over, and plans a disastrous shower, just in time for his mother’s water to break and the baby to have an infection.

While much of the storyline surrounding Joshua’s hospital stay actually occurs in the episode that follows, this episode ending on a cliffhanger with the audience not knowing whether or not Joshua would live or die is big for the show. It deals with death (or the possibility of it) rarely, and when it does, Boy MeetsWorld does serious subject matter well, and doesn’t just quickly move on.

9 S1E06 – “Boys II Mensa” (7.6)

Set against the backdrop of Halloween is Cory learning the consequences of cheating on a test. When Cory finds the answers to a test during detention and suddenly gets the highest score when he’d been struggling, it’s obvious to Mr. Feeny and his parents that he cheated, but it takes most of the episode for Cory to own up to it.

The episode is a typical one for Boy Meets World, seeing Cory learn a valuable lesson that actually helps inform how he approaches morality issues as the show goes on. It’s also pretty fun to see him still get one over on Mr. Feeny when he gets another costumed child to tell the teacher how great Cory thinks he is, only for Mr. Feeny to unmask the kid, thinking Cory is playing a prank.

8 S2E12 – “Turnaround” (7.7)

“Turnaround” only really qualifies as a holiday episode because it’s set right before Christmas. Most of the episode, however, is focused on the classic tween series trope of a dance based on the girls having to ask the boys.

Today, that idea might seem antiquated, but it’s in just about every 1980s and ’90s show made involving kids and teens. Topanga is one of the best parts of the episode as Cory worries about his image when an unpopular girl asks him to go. Topanga points out that the dance being a “turnaround” implies that only boys can ask girls out, and society needs to get beyond that “gender-biased thinking.” She was truly ahead of her time.

7 S1E16 – “Risky Business” (7.8)

Valentine’s Day was the “B” story in this particular episode, but it’s certainly a fun part of “Risky Business.” The “A” story features Cory and Shawn gambling as a way to do a school project about investing money and learning a typical Boy Meets World lesson from Mr. Feeny. The “B” story, however, is about Cory’s parents trying to make plans to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

It’s a rare occasion for the “B” story to be more interesting than the main storyline in the show, but Amy and Alan leaving notes for one another all over the house to plan their date instead of just talking creates a cute story for the couple, as well as a fun mix-up for fans to watch unfold.

6 S4E10 – “Turkey Day” (7.9)

As is the case with many of the Boy Meets World holiday episodes, this one doubles as some family fun and teaches a lesson. It centers on Thanksgiving, with Shawn and Cory insisting that their families spend Thanksgiving together after the two win a turkey.

Though the parents often teach the lessons in this series, this time around, it’s the kids. Shawn’s parents aren’t comfortable with Cory’s being in their trailer park home for the holiday, and Cory’s parents make a lot of assumptions about the Hunters because they aren’t as financially stable. Though the parents clash, the kids have no problem sitting down to a meal and recognizing the differences as ingrained stigmas. It’s a nice change of pace for the show, even if the moral of the episode is a little heavy-handed.

5 S4E12- “Easy Street” (7.9)

While this particular episode is set in the days leading up to Christmas Eve, it’s largely not a holiday episode. It’s mostly a typical Boy Meets World episode with Shawn trying to find an easy way to make money, and Cory being anxious about Shawn’s path in life.

In true dramatic Cory fashion, Cory discovers that his great new job is actually running errands for mob bosses. Though he quits, Shawn takes the job, which puts him and Cory in a moral quandary. It’s got all the classic elements of Shawn trying to breeze by, Cory imagining the worst-case scenario, and the boys finally understanding something their teacher has been trying to get them to learn. It might surprise some fans that it ranks so highly, but sometimes, the classics are comforting.

4 S5E08 – “Chasing Angela: Part 2” (8.0)

The holiday in this episode takes a backseat to the larger story. Eric and Jack decide to host Thanksgiving, and everything that can go wrong, will. It’s a funny breather for the more dramatic story that is Angela and Shawn’s relationship, one of the worst in Boy Meets World.

The two are hesitant to have a serious relationship because they both want what Cory and Topanga have, but aren’t sure they can find it with one another. Their friends try to help them, but Angela and Shawn find that they can’t just be Cory and Topanga and have a successful relationship; they have to be themselves. As a result of the two different storylines, the episode has a nice balance of humor and heart.

3 S5E11- “A Very Topanga Christmas” (8.0)

Because it’s clear that Cory Matthews and Boy Meets World‘s female lead Topanga Lawrence are meant to be from a very young age, a lot of the series centers on their relationship. That’s true of this season 5 Christmas outing as well. Topanga wants to spend Christmas with the Matthews family, but Cory gets frustrated as she only seems to want to push her family traditions on him, while Cory isn’t interested.

For younger audience members, this episode is a lesson in compromise. For older audience members, it’s a fun take on A Christmas Carol as Cory dreams of future Christmases without Topanga. It’s an episode with plenty of drama that allows the audience to still root for a happy ending.

2 S6E11- “Santa’s Little Helpers” (8.1)

The title for this Christmas episode, and some of the themes, actually echo a season 1 episode. While the main storyline is of Topanga and Cory inviting Shawn and Angela to Christmas at the Matthews household after the two have decided not to date, the B story concerns Eric working as a mall Santa.

It’s that B story that echoes the season 1 story of helping others. Eric is pretty selfish with his time, not paying attention to the kids giving him their Christmas lists, until he bonds with an orphaned boy. Eric decides to swipe a bunch of his family’s presents to donate. It’s a sweet, and very Eric, move. Despite Eric being used primarily as comic relief in the later seasons of the show, this episode demonstrates that he’s got a heart.

1 S1E10 – “Santa’s Little Helper” (8.3)

The very first Christmas episode is the best. The episode is Boy Meets World at its finest. While it still includes the humor the show is known for, it also tackles a serious subject: one of Shawn’s parents getting laid off during the holiday season.

Cory is all about presents, and thoughtlessly brags about what he’s getting for Christmas without knowing that Shawn’s family doesn’t have extra money to spend. It’s not until conversations with both his father and Mr. Feeny that Cory realizes Christmas (and friendship) is about more than just presents. While Shawn is initially embarrassed, Cory keeps his secret, and Shawn finds a support system in the Matthews family. It really sets the tone for their relationship for the rest of the show.

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