...McKinley's inescapable astronomy classroom, where New Directions -- accompanied by ten assorted band geeks -- performs "We Need A Little Christmas" from Mame, with Mercedes taking the lead while the others sway maniacally back and forth behind her with enormous false smiles plastered across their faces, and no sooner has Mercedes made it through the first lines of the song when the catcalls from their disgusted audience begin: "You suck!" "Who goes caroling with a band?" "I'd seriously rather be learning." "You're makin' me hate Christmas!" Things would continue in this vein throughout the number, I'm sure, were it not for the efforts of the intrepid astronomy teacher, who strips off one of her flats and hurls it at the drummer. Hee. And as their disgusted audience screams invective, the Glee Clubbers plus their musical ensemble flee.

"I can't believe that that teacher let those students speak to us like that!" Rachel pisses once the children have retreated to the relative safety of the music room. "I can't believe she threw a shoe at us," Puck sagely notes. "I guess we're done caroling," Single-T Tina glums. The kiddies are busily decorating the fantabulous new tree Mr. Schue bought to "inspire" them, by the way, and Finn uses said tree as a leaping-off point to launch himself into a Buck Up, Little Campers! speech I'll be ignoring in favor of throwing focus over to Our Dear Little Brit-Brit, who asserts, "Pretty soon, no one will bully us -- Santa Claus can do anything, and this year, I asked for the Glee Club to stop getting picked on." The others shoot looks at each other until Lauren gives voice to what each of them is thinking: "She's kidding, right?" Artie pulls everyone except Brittany over to a corner of the room to confirm that Brittany still believes in Santa Claus, and consternation abounds until Artie delivers some cloying speech about how magical it is to have faith, or something like that, and right before we head into this evening's first commercial break, he indicates he has a foolproof plan to preserve Brittany's faith in morbidly obese home invaders.