As is tradition, each year the four current soap operas, The Bold and the Beautiful, The Young and the Restless, Days of our Lives and General Hospital celebrate Christmas with episodes designed to bring characters together with their families for a day of love, fights, bickering, drama, kisses and more.

Next year in 2025, we can add the new CBS daytime drama to the mix, Beyond the Gates, and we will see just how the core family of the Duprees like to celebrate the holiday, as well. But for now, we ask you, if you were invited to spend the holidays with B&B’s Forrester family, Y&R’s Newmans, Days of our Lives Horton family, or GH’s Quartermaine clan, which would you choose?

On The Bold and the Beautiful, the Forrester family gathered and dressed for the most part in their finest. Pam (Alley Mills) did the cooking, Steffy (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) and Finn (Tanner Novlan) looked like a stunning and beautiful couple, Taylor (Rebecca Budig) dressed for the occasion now that she is making out again with her ex Ridge (Thorsten Kaye), and everything looks lovey dovey on the surface, except Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang) is left out in the cold. She is celebrating Christmas with the Logan sisters, after having a massive fight with Ridge over becoming CEO of Forrester Creations after Hope (Annika Noelle) and Carter’s (Lawrence Saint-Victor) takeover.

Photo: Sean Smith/Bell-Phillip TV

What Ridge didn’t know (before he got on top of the bed with Taylor), is that Brooke had a plan to become the CEO to convince Carter and Hope to give the company back to Eric and Ridge. Missing him on Christmas, she sends Ridge a text, he doesn’t respond. So,  tells herself by next Christmas she will be back together with Ridge. At the Forresters, they sing holiday songs, led by Eric. Would you choose to go to the Forresters?

Photo: JPI

On The Young and the Restless, Victor (Eric Braeden) and Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott) have settled into their Newman Ranch 2.0 and Claire (Hayley Erin) is now celebrating Christmas with the family as an “official member”, and even her dad Cole (J. Eddie Peck) is there. What they don’t know is Jordan Howard (Colleen Zenk) and Ian Ward (Ray Wise) are on the loose. However, you can’t get anymore lavish then getting to spend the holidays with Victor and Nikki Newman and their loved ones.  Would you like to spend Christmas with the Newmans and see how long things stay loving and sweet, before drama ensues?

Photo: JPI

Over at Days of our Lives, there is no other lasting family tradition on the soaps like Christmas at the Hortons, which has been handed down generations by the matriarch and patriarch, Tom and Alice Horton. Each year, the family gathers for the annual Horton ornament hanging ceremony on the Christmas tree. This year was no different, except Julie (Susan Seaforth Hayes) spent the holiday without Doug (the late Bill Hayes) for the first time since he passed. Would you like to spend Christmas at the Hortons and even get your own ornament to put on the tree?

Finally, General Hospital’s wealthy, chaotic, and double-crossing Quartermaines, always have fun, fights, conflict and some music on Christmas. This year, Tracy (Jane Elliot), Brook Lynn (Amanda Setton), Lois (Rena Sofer) and Olivia (she must be cooking), celebrated with Ned (Wally Kurth), Giovanni (Giovanni Mazza) and Chase (Josh Swickard).

Photo: ABC

The three gents performed a song for the holiday at the request of the ladies. The happiness was juxtaposed with all of the drama surrounding the family with Drew Quartermaine’s (Cameron Mathison) deceptions and affair with Willow (Katelyn MacMullen) being exposed, Jason (Steve Burton) and Danny (Asher Antonyzyn) taking a moment on the Q’s balcony to remember the loss of Sam (Kelly Monaco), and more. However, if you want to spend time with family who is not afraid to stab you in the back, this might be the the place for your Christmas, and who doesn’t love the Q’s!

So, given the circumstances, who would you want to spend Christmas with … the Forresters, Newmans, Hortons or the Quartermaines? Let us know you pick and why in the comment section! Happy Holidays!

Longtime Days of our Lives viewers needed the hankies for today’s Christmas episode streaming on Peacock. This would be the first time Julie (Susan Seaforth Hayes) is presiding over the Horton tradition of hanging the family ornaments on the tree for the holiday without her beloved Doug (the late Bill Hayes).

Since Doug’s passing at Thanksgiving, Julie has welcomed into her home, Doug III (Peyton Meyer), but doesn’t know much about the young man, other than he says he is Doug’s grandson. In her grief over the loss of her husband, her family raises concerns that she knows nothing about the guy. When the episode opens, he is on the phone checking on the money he hopes to receive from hawking Alice Horton’s necklace from the time capsule. Julie comes upon the call, and he lies to her.

Jennifer (Melissa Reeves) speaks with Jack (Matthew Ashford) and JJ (Casey Moss) at Horton Town Square about Doug III being in jail before he came to Salem. When the trio arrive at the Horton’s, JJ throws that piece of intel at Doug III. He tells a story of how he does not get along with his father, and when he found out his grandfather died, he went to a bar, got drunk and got into a fight and landed in a jail for a few nights. No one quite believes him, although Julie continues to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Courtesy/Peacock

Once Xander (Paul Telfer), Sarah (Linsey Godfrey), Maggie (Suzanne Rogers), Shawn-Douglas (Brandon Beemer) and Holly (Ashley Puzemis) arrive at the Hortons (btw, are we seeing the spark between Doug III and Holly?), It’s time for the Horton tradition as Julie leads everyone in the ornament hanging, and what it means.

Photo: JPI

Jack and Jennifer place their ornaments on the tree, and so does JJ, as well as Maggie and more. Julie tells Doug III, she is sorry there is not an ornament for him this year, but she promises he will have one come next Christmas. Instead, in a shocking move, Julie asks Doug III if he will do the honors and put her beloved Doug’s ornament on the tree, leaving Jennifer, Jack and JJ very concerned.

Courtesy/Peacock

Doug III places Doug’s ornament as a bereft Julie watches the moment. Next, Julie reminds the family that Doug always led them in song following the ornament hanging. To keep that tradition, she asks JJ to lead them in a song. JJ remembers it’s “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” and begins to sing as everyone joins in.

Later, alone in the house with just Doug III, he says he is going to turn in for the night, leaving Julie alone. She then recalls her first Christmas with Doug where she gave him a watch with an engraved message on it, which reads, “to my secret love,” and we get a flashback of that scene from decades ago featuring Bill Hayes.

Courtesy/Peacock

As the Christmas episode comes to its conclusion, an emotional Julie looks up and says, “Gone from my sight, never from my heart. Merry Christmas, my love.”

So, what did you think about this year’s Horton family ornament hanging on the Christmas tree? Did you need the hankies as Julie is missing Doug during the holiday and always? What are your thoughts on Doug III? Is he telling the truth, or is he fabricating his entire story? Share your thoughts via the comment section below.

In a surprise story move kept under wraps, Days of our Lives is resurrecting a doppelgänger story from the past. This time, involving longtime vet, Galen Gering (Rafe Hernandez). On the Tuesday, December 24th episode of the Peacock streaming soap opera, EJ (Dan Feuerriegel) received a knock on the door and opened it to see what appeared to be Rafe.

However, EJ soon found out it was none other than criminal Arnold Feniger, the man that EJ and Stefano hired back in 2011 to impersonate Rafe (after undergoing extensive plastic surgery that is).

In story, the initial switcheroo happened when Rafe was trying to help his then wife, Sami (Alison Sweeney) gain custody of her children Johnny and Sydney. That made EJ (then played by James Scott) go ballistic. So with the assistance of his father, Stefano DiMera (the late Joseph Mascolo), they plotted a car accident that left Rafe severely injured.

Photo: JPI

While Rafe was recuperating from his injuries, Stefano and EJ kidnapped him and threw him in the DiMera basement and Arnold “Faux Rafe” took over his life. EJ and Stefano even injected drugs to erase Rafe’s memories. Eventually, Sami figured out there were two Rafe’s in a major showdown. Arnold was sent to prison, and had been believed to be beaten to death in the slammer. However, as we found out on today’s episode, EJ actually shipped Arnold out of the country.

Speaking with Soap Opera Digest on Arnold’s return, Gering revealed he found out he would be playing dual roles again only about a week before he was set to tape his first episode of Feniger’s return from DAYS co-executive producer, Janet Drucker.

“The guy had died. So they had to go back and recreate what had happened and how he managed to live, that it was all a hoax and he was whisked away and had been holed up (somewhere). So this caught me by surprise, but I loved it,” shared Galen. “Playing the guy was great. For me it was a thrill to hear that we were going to revisit it. Then, obviously, I wanted to know how it was going to affect the canvas, what was happening (in the storyline).”

Courtesy/Peacock

Gering shared he went back and looked at old episodes of “Faux Rafe” and decided for the 2024/2025 version that he would amp up his personality a bit. “I was like, ‘You know what? I think we’re going to take a few more liberties this time. I think we were going to make him more ridiculous and extreme.”’

As viewers saw, Arnold wants to extort money from EJ to keep quiet, and by the end of the episode threatened that he is planning on sticking around Salem for quite some time to come.

So, are you ready for a Faux Rafe/Rafe storyline with Galen at its epicenter causing havoc for EJ and trouble in the relationship of Jada and Rafe? Share your thoughts via the comment section below.