Nailed It Holiday: The Festive Spinoff Explained

Nailed It was always going to do a Christmas special. A show built on amateur bakers wrecking elaborate showpieces practically demanded gingerbread houses, melting snowman cakes, and Santa faces with haunted eyes, and Netflix obliged quickly. Nailed It! Holiday! is the festive spinoff of the main series, and if you only know the flagship show, here is what the holiday edition adds. For the parent series, start with our Nailed It overview and show hub.

What it is and when it dropped

Nailed It! Holiday! is a separate, seasonally themed run of the show rather than a single special. The first batch arrived on December 7, 2018, only nine months after the main series premiered, which tells you how fast Nailed It became one of Netflix's signature unscripted hits. A second holiday season followed on November 22, 2019, timed to carry viewers from Thanksgiving through Christmas.

The format is untouched, and that is the point. Three hopeless amateur bakers, two challenges, a $10,000 prize, and the same core panel: host Nicole Byer, head judge Jacques Torres, and a rotating guest judge each episode. The only thing that changes is the wardrobe, the set dressing, and the briefs, which go all-in on winter holidays.

What the holiday briefs look like

The joy of the spinoff is watching the show's trademark gap between ambition and ability applied to the most emotionally loaded bakes of the year. Contestants attempt festive showpieces of the kind that fill Pinterest boards every December, and the results are exactly what you would expect from the Nailed It casting department. Holiday bakes are uniquely suited to the show because everyone watching has attempted one: the audience knows firsthand how hard a gingerbread house is to keep standing, which makes the collapses both funnier and more sympathetic.

The spinoff also ranges beyond Christmas. The 2018 run includes a Hanukkah-themed episode, judged by the late, legendary cake artist Sylvia Weinstock, which remains one of the warmest episodes in the whole franchise.

Guest judges worth watching for

The holiday seasons attracted a strong comedy bench. Jason Mantzoukas appears in both holiday runs and is arguably the best recurring guest judge the show ever had, treating each disastrous cake with the gravity of a war crime. Maya Rudolph, Jillian Bell, Lauren Lapkus, Kate Berlant, and magician Justin Willman all take turns at the table as well. If you pick episodes by guest judge, the Mantzoukas and Rudolph episodes are the safest bets.

How it fits into the wider franchise

The holiday runs proved the Nailed It format could flex around a theme, and the main show followed suit: later seasons include a Halloween-flavored run, and the franchise spun off international editions too. Within the baking-show genre, festive spinoffs are a tradition of their own, from Food Network's holiday championships to the Bake Off specials, and we map that whole landscape in our guide to baking shows' holiday specials.

Should you watch it?

If you like Nailed It at all, yes. The holiday seasons are the same show with tinsel on, and December is when its particular comfort-food chaos hits hardest. Start with the Hanukkah episode or either Mantzoukas episode, keep expectations for the cakes at zero, and you will have a lovely time.