Christmas is in the air in Poplar! PBS is continuing its Christmas tradition of airing a new Call the Midwife holiday special on Dec. 25, and we have all the details you need to know about 2024’s super-sized (and super-festive) episode.
How to watch the 2024 ‘Call the Midwife’ holiday special on PBS
The 2024 Call the Midwife holiday special will premiere Dec. 25, 2024 at 8 p.m. ET on PBS. (Check local listings.) For the first time, the special will be split into two, one-hour parts – a full 30 minutes longer than the typical 90-minute holiday special.
The special will be available to stream at the same time as it’s broadcast at the official Call the Midwife site or with the PBS App on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android phones, iPhones, iPads, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast, and Android TV.
As an extra holiday bonus for fans, PBS Passport members can also stream the Call the Midwife specials from 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 in the weeks leading up to Christmas. They’ll be available to watch through Jan. 24, 2025, along with the 2024 special after its broadcast premiere. PBS Passport is a membership perk available to those who donate at least $5 per month or $60 per year to their local PBS station. PBS stations will also air an all-day holiday special marathon featuring previous Call the Midwife Christmas episodes on Dec. 25.
What to expect from the ‘Call the Midwife’ Christmas episode
In the 2024 Call the Midwife Christmas episodes, the nuns and midwives of Nonnatus House are preparing to say goodbye to the 1960s with a funfair and carol concert that add color to frosty Poplar. But the festive spirit is dampened by the spread of influenza. Plus, after a series of break-ins, fears grow that an escaped prisoner could be behind the crimes.
As the holiday approaches, the Turner children get caught up in the fever surrounding the latest Blue Peter Christmas appeal. Nurse Trixie (Helen George) will celebrate with her brother Geoffrey, while Miss Higgins (Georgie Glen) gets a visit from her grandson, Harry, the son of the child she gave up for adoption many years ago. Meanwhile, the Buckles are preparing for Reggie’s (Daniel Laurie) homecoming, but their plans are thrown into sudden turmoil.
Jenny Agutter, who plays Sister Julienne, described the 2024 Christmas special as “quite Dickensian.”
“It is quite dark, but in with that is a lot of humor and a lot of humanity, and that’s what lightens it,” she told Radio Times. “It’s just the recognition that we’re in difficult times, we’ve been in difficult times, we always were in difficult times. It just recognizes that.”
According to an announcement shared on the show’s Instagram, the special will also come “complete with a Christmas cliffhanger!” That cliffhanger will presumably be resolved in Call the Midwife Season 14, which premieres in March 2025 on PBS.
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