It’s Christmas time in Orson, but the kids aren’t really feeling it this year. That’s why Frankie decides that instead of a ‘little kid Christmas’ they can do a ‘big kid Christmas’ now that the kids have grown up. She invites the Donahues for cocktails and a game of Yankee Swap and after that they will go to the midnight service.

Axl however doesn’t want to go to church. He has seen other religions and just isn’t feeling his faith. Frankie and Sue try to convince him to go anyway, but Frankie can’t even come up with any good reasons why she is still going to church. She feels bad about it that Axl has lost his faith, but as Mike later tells Frankie: Axl’s getting older and starts making decisions for himself and maybe this is the way God wants it to work out for him. When Christmas Eve rolls around, Frankie tells him that she will stop bugging him about going to church and explains to him in a speech why she goes: With all the crap that goes on in her life, she’s happy to have something to fall back on, to know there’s somebody out there to have your back. After this little talk, Axl may not have found his faith back, but he does go to church that night, maybe for the sole reason of making his mom happy.

Meanwhile in another smaller storyline, Mike tries to get the Glossners to stop destroying his inflatable snowman. He fails multiple times, and even with the help of Ron Donahue he gets outsmarted by the youngest Glossner kid who has grown up a lot, but is still wearing a diaper. They realize there’s no point in trying to explain what he did wrong and decide to just let it go.

But let’s go back to earlier that night. The Donahues are coming over for Christmas Eve. Everybody has wrapped a gift for the game. Brick is proud of his own bought and wrapped present, but is disappointed when nobody picks his (I would, it looked great…). Sue has wrapped the snow globe as her present (the one that Sean wanted to give her, but ended up in the trash where Sue found it), but before Sean gets to open Sue’s gift, he leaves after he gets a text from a friend. His grades have just been posted and Sean isn’t happy. He got B’s and even a couple of C’s for some of his tests, which is very average especially for Sean. Sue comes out to comfort him, with all her experiences in being average, and after they share a hug, the two finally kiss.

Like I said multiple times, I’m not on board with a relationship between Sue and Sean (yet), but I am very glad they are finally together. We knew this would happen eventually and I’m glad that the ‘will they, won’t they’ part of this whole plot is now over. I also liked the way it was written, with the snow globe not being the thing that got them together. Now let’s see if the writers can convince me on their relationship in the second half of the season.

Overall I enjoyed this episode. I especially loved Mike’s storyline, all his scenes were just great, but the most hilarious one was when he got in the bed freezing. I also liked the few short scenes Brick was in. The way he cared for his present to be picked was hilarious and the ending was very funny too.

Axl’s storyline was not my favorite part of the episode, but it did have some funny and relatable things in it. I liked Frankie’s speech at the end, and even though this wasn’t a big part of the episode, I thought it was great to see Axl prepare for his new job. I can’t wait to see future storylines of him at Jackson Plumbing Supply.

The episode could have been a bit more Christmassy (although Mike would probably argue it had plenty of red to make it Christmassy enough), especially considering this was the last ever Christmas episode of The Middle, but overall it was a good episode with some hilarious scenes. Like I said, I’m looking forward to seeing Axl at his new job and I’m also a little curious to see what the future holds for Sue and Sean.

We will have to wait to find out though as The Middle will take a small winter hiatus. The show returns on January 2nd at 8/7c on ABC!

FYI, I will be interviewing Casey Burke, aka Cindy again. If you have any questions for her, let me know in the comments or send me a DM on Twitter.

Happy holidays and I hope to see you back here next year!

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