Christmas in July: All 9 Christmas episodes of The Middle, ranked

8. The Middle Season 4, Episode 9 “Christmas Help”

This episode probably would have ranked higher if it weren’t for the Rusty storyline. I never liked his character. I also found it weird that the show draws a comparison between Axl/Brick and Rusty/Mike.

I think there is a pretty substantial difference between the quirky younger brother and “cool” older brother versus whatever Rusty has going on. I mean the guy literally stole furniture, tricked his brother into stashing it, and then refused to take any real responsibility for it. That goes far beyond just having a “weird” brother.

That said, Brick being the star of the Christmas play by doing whatever he felt like was hilarious as was his family’s reaction and I loved seeing Frankie trying to hide the gifts she planned to buy throughout the store until she could use her employee discount!

7. The Middle Season 1, Episode 10 “Christmas”

As the first Christmas episode of the series, “Christmas” had the difficult task of setting the tone for all the other Christmas episodes that would follow, and I think the writers did a great job of that. It was fun to see Frankie getting her chance to shine in the church choir, even if her family wound up being super late to the show.

I also genuinely laughed at the ending scene with the Hecks all arguing in the car. If there was one thing The Middle did well it was a car argument and seeing them all get jerked around not once, but twice, made the scene even funnier. Plus, it was nice that Mike finally admitted how exhausting Christmas can be, especially since Frankie does most of it each year!