This holiday season, Family Guy is decking the halls and roasting the Hallmark Channel. As part of Collider’s Exclusive Preview event, we’re thrilled to share a first look at the episode. Collider is also delighted to reveal that the long-running animated comedy’s 2025 Christmas special, titled “Disney’s Hulu’s Family Guy’s Hallmark Channel’s Lifetime’s Familiar Holiday Movie,” will parody classic Hallmark holiday romances with Lois Griffin front and center. The episode sees Lois playing a big-city executive sent to the small hamlet of Townsville to “steal” a beloved pie recipe. Instead, she meets Peter—reimagined here as a small-town mechanic and pie connoisseur—who might just teach her that love and carbs matter more than corporate ambition.

In a conversation with Collider, Family Guy executive producers and showrunners Alec Sulkin and Rich Appel shared how the idea came together — and why they decided to fully embrace the sugary sincerity of the Hallmark formula. “Well, I think it gets harder and harder every year to try to think of an original — or what we hope is an original — Christmas episode,” Sulkin admitted. “So this year, we just decided to give up trying to be original and just used every single thing that’s been used before.” That decision led to what Appel calls one of their most self-aware (and surprisingly cozy) holiday specials yet.

“It’s fun for a show like Family Guy that obviously, in tone, doesn’t have a ton in common with the classic Hallmark family-friendly movies. So it was a fun area to explore.”

Sulkin added that part of the appeal came from understanding the real-world charm of those overly sweet, small-town fantasies. “It’s just like entertainment Xanax, those Hallmark movies,” he explained. “Sometimes when you turn them on, you’re like, ‘You know what? Life in this town wouldn’t be so bad.’ There’s absolutely an element of wish fulfillment.” The episode also features a musical touch that nails the tone perfectly. Country superstar and Yellowstone‘s own Lainey Wilson lends her voice to the opening theme — a soaring “busy city girl” anthem straight out of a Hallmark trailer. “She came in, she’s very hot right now, and she loved doing it,” Sulkin said. “She even suggested a harmony for the song that she then filled in herself. It’s fun when you get to use somebody like that, who seems kind of perfect for a high-end Hallmark movie.”

Where Is the ‘Family Guy’ Christmas Special Set?

Visually, the special also stands apart from standard Family Guy fare. The story leaves Quahog behind entirely, sending the animation team into overdrive to build the wintery town of Townsville from scratch. “We can just write ‘small town’ and our very talented production team handles the rest,” Sulkin explained. “They know when it’s not Quahog and that they need to create a new world for us, and they’re always so great at it.” Appel added that while the team doesn’t treat holiday episodes as separate productions, everyone knows when one will require “all hands on deck.”

“Every background is practically new, every character is redesigned. Any episode that requires that much new background work and design has to get the manpower it deserves. So we can’t have too many of those in one season. It’s special because we know it’s a bigger effort.”

Of course, Family Guy’s history with Christmas episodes runs deep — from “A Very Special Family Guy Freakin’ Christmas” to the infamous one where Stewie’s Santa visit leads to Meg’s sexual awakening — how wholesome. But even with decades of holiday chaos behind them, the team’s approach hasn’t changed much, according to Appel. “I don’t think it has,” he told Collider. “We always look at it as a special episode. It’s a lot of work because it’s invariably in a different place with new backgrounds. We know as writers it’s got to be a funny special idea, and the production side knows they really have to throw the kitchen sink in.” And when asked if Family Guy has ever stopped to ponder the “true meaning” of Christmas, Appel had the perfect callback:

“Alec isn’t just a comedy writer, he’s also an actor on the show — and he plays Jesus. In one Christmas episode, Jesus came for his birthday and wanted to sleep with Lois. The question was: can Peter stop Jesus from having sex with his wife? So if you can find the meaning of Christmas in there, please let us know.”

The 2025 Family Guy Christmas special premieres on November 28 on Hulu, just in time for those who think it’s never too early to start watching holiday movies.

Release Date

January 31, 1999

Network

FOX

Directors

Peter Shin, Pete Michels, John Holmquist, Greg Colton, Brian Iles, Julius Wu, Joseph Lee, Joe Vaux, Mike Kim, Steve Robertson, Dan Povenmire, James Purdum, Dominic Bianchi, Dominic Polcino, Bob Bowen, Monte Young, Zac Moncrief, Michael Dante DiMartino, Bert Ring, Seth Kearsley, Scott Wood, Chuck Klein, Brian Hogan, Gavin Dell

Writers

Steve Callaghan, Patrick Meighan, Mark Hentemann, Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, Tom Devanney, Alex Carter, Alec Sulkin, Wellesley Wild, Gary Janetti, Andrew Goldberg, Mike Desilets, Anthony Blasucci, Matt Weitzman, Kirker Butler, Damien Fahey, John Viener, Brian Scully, Ted Jessup, Chris Regan, Matt Pabian, Garrett Donovan, Ricky Blitt, Aaron Lee, Julius Sharpe

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  Seth MacFarlane

  Peter Griffin / Brian Griffin / Stewie Griffin / Glenn Quagmire / Tom Tucker (voice)

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  Alex Borstein

  Lois Griffin / Tricia Takanawa / Loretta Brown / Barbara Pewterschmidt (voice)