Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 1 episode 11 opens on a Christmas season years ago. Susie and Sabrina visit a department store Santa and tell him what they want for Christmas. While Susie’s request for a toy truck (like her dad’s) is reasonable, Sabrina wants her mother. As the girls visit with Santa, Aunt Hilda and Susie’s father discuss the case of a child who went missing in Greendale.
A Solstice Seance
Following her dark baptism, Sabrina is feeling confused about her life now. What she wants is to talk with her mother and find out how Sabrina’s father and mother got on after Edward revealed to Diana that he was a warlock. Knowing that her mother is in limbo — a fact Sabrina can’t get past — Sabrina decides to hold a seance in order to speak to her mother.
Sabrina acquires the book of the dead from Ms. Wardwell, who realizes that she’s not been called back to the Dark Lord because there is more work for her to do. In order to try and keep Sabrina from communicating with her mortal mother, Wardwell decides to sabotage the seance. Sabrina ask Susie and Roz for help, but both are busy with the holidays and a little creeped out by the idea. Sabrina turns to the Weird Sisters, who agree to help with the summoning.
Gryla and the Yule Lads
Wardwell extinguishes the Spellman’s yule log, which allows malevolent spirits to enter the house when Sabrina and the Weird Sisters perform the seance. With the spirits on the loose and causing mischief, Aunt Zelda barges into Sabrina’s room to warn her and finds the ghost of Diana. Upset that Sabrina is being careless with powerful magic again, Zee chastises Sabrina for not turning to her for help. Sabrina is surprised that Zee would offer to help Sabrina speak to her dead mother.
.Aunt Hilda tells Sabrina that Zee always treated Diana coldly. When Edward and Diana died, Zee’s heart was filled with regret. That is why Zee is so protective of Sabrina now, which Sabrina sees in the way Zee cares for Leticia, Father Blackwood’s infant daughter.
The spirits in the house are Yule Lads, the ghosts of children taken by a vengeful witch names Gryla. The only way to get rid of them is to summon Gryla and provide her with an offering of food and drink in exchange for her calling her children home. The plan works up until the point when Leticia drops her pacifier and cries out. Gryla asserts that as an abandoned child, she has as much a right to claim Leticia as Zee does.
Sabrina’s mother’s spirit returns, telling the witches that she has the authority from the Catholic Church and the Church of the Night to decide the infant’s fate. A circle of black salt is drawn and the baby placed inside. Gryla and Zee are to each grab an arm and pull. The witch with the strength to free the child from the circle gets her. Zee cries out that she won’t participate in tearing the child apart and Gryla is awarded the infant, which is nothing more than a teddy bear with a glamour upon it.
Seeing that Sabrina is well loved and cared for by her aunts, Diana is at peace.
Bartel the Yule Demon
Susie finally has the seasonal job she always wanted, dressed as an elf and taking photos at the department store of the kids who come to meet Santa. While visiting Susie at work, Roz has a vision that she keeps to herself. Staying late to ready the store for the next day, Susie find that the child mannequins at the store are the kids who have gone missing over the years. Susie is abducted by Mr. Bartel, a yule demon, who heats wax in order to cover Susie and store her soul within.
When Susie’s father calls Roz looking for Susie, Roz turns to the Spellmans and tells them that she saw the demon in her vision. The Spellmans summon Gryla again and send her to deal with the child-killing demon. The Yule Lads free Susie and Gryla overcomes the demon, using his body as the candle in their own solstice celebration.
“Merry Christmas, or… What Do You Guys Say?”
In spite of the times that Harvey has told Sabrina that he is not comfortable with magic after Sabrina brought Tommy back and Harvey had to kill him again, Sabrina gives Harvey a magical Christmas gift and uses magic to cause Harvey’s father to get sober. Harvey thanks Sabrina for helping his father, but returns the gift to her and reiterates that he wants nothing to do with magic.
What did you think of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina holiday episode? Let us know in the comments below!
