For whatever bizarre reason, Mr. Schue's decidedly unimpressed with the kiddies' efforts to spread a little seasonal cheer throughout the music room, and while he thanks them for trying, he claims that such displays aren't "what Christmas is supposed to be like." "For us, it is," Mercedes sasses back. "This tree is like a mascot for Glee Club," she asserts. Just go with it. "We've won Sectionals two years in a row," she needlessly reminds everyone, "and according to everyone at this school, we still suck."

Smear sideways to what I'm guessing is the previous day. Gaylord, Single-T Tina, and Mercedes arrive for first period, nattering happily amongst themselves whilst Karofsky and two of his fellow meatheads ominously approach them with a trio of seasonally appropriate slushies in various shades of red and green. "Ho, ho, ho, losers!" one of the jocks who isn't a closet case (well, not that we know of, so far) bellows as the slushies hit their respective targets, and before we know it, we've smeared back to...

...the music room, where Gaylord mopes, "I'm pretty sure they just added food coloring to real slush from the parking lot." "You can eat that, you know," Lauren notes, because she is fat, and therefore rather catholic in her tastes. Mr. Schue blows past all the lunacy to state that he'll not allow New Directions to throw itself "a pity party." "I'm the first one to say that things haven't turned out exactly how I would have liked them to this year," he admits, clearly still mourning all those lost Emmys, "but Christmas is all about being grateful for the things that did!" "I thought that was Thanksgiving," Puck murmurs, and I think I've just fallen in love with him all over again. Mr. Schue ignores Puck's eminently sane observation in favor of announcing with vast amounts of self-deluded and -congratulatory smugness, "This year, Glee Club is gonna lend a hand to The McKinney-Vento Homeless Children And Youth Program right here in Lima!" And how, pray tell, are the children supposed to do that? By caroling, of course, from classroom to classroom to raise money for this mythic McKinney-Vento Homeless Children And Youth Program right there in Lima, about which I can find nothing on the Internets. The children are horrified. "We're gonna be killed," Quinn sighs. Finn attempts to rally the troops with some nonsense about Christmas miracles, but none of it really matters, because Mr. Schue's decided to sublimate his own conflicting emotions surrounding the holiday season by having the Glee Club go "full Santa" this year, and when Mr. Schue decides to sublimate his own conflicting emotions about something by having the children perform asinine tasks, well, the children perform asinine tasks. And to that end, we skip ahead to...