- I did host a Yankee swap Christmas party.
My favorite person to have at a Yankee swap party--
- Yes.
- is Oscar Nunez.
- I was gonna say Oscar!
- Oscar! - Yeah.
- Like, I remember one of the gifts was
like a fake ponytail.
- Uh huh.
- That you ended up getting. - I-I took that home!
- Yeah, I took home a fake ponytail.
- Yeah, and Oscar, like, started chants, like,
"Pony tail! Pony!"
I mean, they're not really creative chants,
but you'd be surprised how much they catch on.
(intro music)
- Ho, ho, ho.
- This is a big episode.
- It's the Christmas episode!
- It's the Christmas episode.
The very first Christmas episode of The Office.
This episode was directed by Charles McDougall.
Oh guys, do we have stories about Charles McDougall.
- I mean.
- First of all, he was British.
- Yes.
- (British accent) He's British.
- I'm bringing out the accent, guys.
I did my spin bike, and now I'm speaking like a Brit.
- (Angela groans)
- [Jenna] As I've already said,
it's our very first Christmas episode!
- [Angela] Hello, Christmas party and you guys.
The directors that had directed us prior to him were
Ken Kwapis, who might be the quietest human on the planet.
- [Jenna] Correct.
- [Angela] He says, you know,
when he wants to start a scene, he just says,
"Ah, go ahead."
- [Jenna] And when he gives a note, he'll say,
"Jenna, um...
you know what, no, just go ahead."
- [Angela] Yeah.
- That's Ken Kwapis.
- Yeah.
- You all heard Paul Feig.
- Paul Feig is like, "Hey gang, how's it going?
Hey, we're going to have fun today.
Okay, action."
- [Jenna] Yeah.
Charles McDougall rolls in.
We're all sitting at our desks--
- [Angela] Quietly, about to start the first scene--
- [Jenna] And he goes--
- [Angela] Wait, brace yourself.
- [together] Brace yourself.
- Brace yourself. - He goes,
"Actors...
Action!"
- [Angela] Yes.
We- I thought Phyllis peed herself a little.
- [Jenna] I-I tinkled. I tinkled.
I mean, I was terrified.
- [Angela] I jumped straight up.
He was like, "And action!"
I was like, - [Jenna] We were like,
"Oh, my gosh." - "What's happening?"
- [Angela] What is happening?
- [Jenna] Is Tom Cruise busting through the ceiling,
any minute?
- I'm telling you that first day,
the first moment of every scene,
we all looked like deer in headlights.
- [Jenna] We would flinch!
- [Angela] We would flinch and then we would go into scene.
But then, you guys, we just grew to love this guy.
- Oh.
- He would say things, like,
we'd be working on a scene and he'd be like,
"All right.
You know, let's go again.
Actors. Nearly there.
(Jenna laughs)
- [Angela] Nearly there.
And then I--
- [Jenna] He, one time, he, one time, said,
he said,
"All right, everyone. That was good for cameras.
Actors, better this time?
- [Angela] Yeah.
- [Jenna] Like, oh okay!
- [Angela] And then as we--
- [Jenna, laughing] We'll try to be better this time.
- [Angela] As we got into the episode more,
and the party started,
he would walk up to me and be like,
"Angela. Remember, you're really pissed.
You're really pissed now."
And he, sort of,
and I'm gonna get into it.
It's on a,
it's on, like, four or five note cards,
but he sort of highlighted the level of,
I called it Angela's pissed off-ness.
- Yeah.
- And it, it had like,
it was like building to a crescendo.
And so, towards the end,
he would just yell before a big take in the party.
He'd be like, "All right, everyone happy,
Angela pissed! And, action!"
- [Jenna, laughing] Yes, yes.
(upbeat music)
- I have a ton of facts about the snow.
I don't know if anyone else will find it interesting.
But I had written all about it
in one of my blogs slash journals.
- I want to hear all about your snow.
- All right.
I hope this isn't anticlimactic for people,
but the company that came to make the snow is called
"Snow Biznezz."
- [Angela] Oh, I love that!
- Snow Biznezz.
- I remembered.
I remembered that. It so tickled me.
Okay, so, here's how it works with fake snow.
There's a guy from Snow Biznezz.
He shows up.
Now, the snow that falls from the sky is different
from the ground cover snow.
The snow on the ground is snow.
- The snow that falls from the sky, I know,
because it falls on my character at the end,
and it is not snow.
- It's not snow.
- It's soap.
- Yes!
You can get a choice.
You can get a choice of cornstarch, plastic, or soap.
And Greg watched a demonstration of all three,
and he picked soap.
- Well, when by accident,
a little piece of that might get in your mouth.
- Hmm.
- (laughing) It tastes like soap.
'Cause I shriek and a piece of it went in my mouth.
- (whispering) That's what she said.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Okay.
On the ground, though, it's real snow.
And they bring this machine,
and I don't know exactly how it works,
but it's kind of like, like a wood chipper,
but in-in reverse.
- [Angela] It looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.
- [Jenna] It does! It really does.
And it really blows snow.
I guess that's what it looks like.
It looks like a snowblower, but it generates snow.
And then it just blows it all over the ground,
all over the cars and all that stuff.
But guys, remember,
this is like,
we're shooting this in like October in Los Angeles
and it's hot in October.
It stays warm here.
In the daytime, it's still in the mid eighties, nineties,
but it was night.
And so we had a little bit of time with it.
I mean, it was still warm out.
- [Angela] Yeah, it was probably like in the high sixties.
- [Jenna] Yeah, that sounds about right. All right.
- [Angela] But, yes. We were very excited to have snow.
And...
Jenna, where, where--
- Did you like my snow facts?
I feel a little vulnerable about them now,
'cause we set them up so much.
I mean, there was like break and--
- No!
- I'm in my head about it.
- I like your snow facts.
- Snow Biznezz. That's cute.
- I think Snow Biznezz is really cute.
(instrumental music)
- Okay, guys.
So now, we have the scene
where Pam reveals to Jim
that she got her teapot back.
She trades Dwight the iPod for the teapot,
and now she's going to look inside and find all the items.
And it's very charming and sweet and she is so delighted.
But in this moment,
Jim secretly steals the note back and puts it in his pocket.
- [Angela] I know.
He lost his courage.
- [Jenna] He did.
Now...
when we reached out to fans to ask them
what they wanted to know about the Christmas episode,
I would say that about 80% of the
comments and emails we received
were along the lines of, "What is in the teapot note?"
Because, as you know, in this episode, Pam does not read it.
It is not revealed.
But then, in season nine,
there's a scene where Jim has the documentary film crew put
together footage of their romance,
and he shows it to Pam.
And Pam sees that there was a note that Jim steals back,
and then he hands it to her and she reads it.
- How brilliant is that? And you know who that is?
That's Greg Daniels.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause he was such a master at
beautiful callback moments.
I love that.
- Well, from the time that Jim stole the note,
it drove people crazy.
They always wanted to know
what had been written in the note.
Would Pam ever get the note, for years and years?
Will he ever give her the note?
Around the time of the wedding,
people wanted him to give it to her as a wedding gift.
Greg saved it 'til the end.
I'm going to say something that I've never said before.
I also feel like I'm maybe going to cry.
- What?
Wait...
Wait.
- What?
- Are you gonna,
are you gonna say what was in the note?
Are you going to say what was in the note?
- Sort of.
- Because I don't know what was on that card.
None of us do.
- I'm the only one who knows and John knows.
- Oh my gosh, lady.
- In that episode in season nine,
I believe Greg suggested to John
that he write a personal message,
from himself to me.
Just saying what our time together on The Office
meant to him.
- Aw, Jenna.
- Because we were wrapping up filming.
We were wrapping up the series,
and we were all so emotional at that time, you know.
- It was all,
we were all sort of saying goodbye in different ways.
- We were.
And so, that was his goodbye.
Very similar to when we filmed that scene with Steve,
where I said goodbye to him at the airport.
And Paul Feig told me,
"Just run up and say goodbye to your friend Steve."
- Jeff Blitz said the same thing to me
when I was in the car with Oscar.
And I say I love Dwight.
He said, "Angela, in this moment,
express your love for the show and everyone,
and if you couldn't have it in your life anymore."
And I disintegrated.
- [Jenna] Yeah.
So, I'm on camera,
and I open up this note that John's written me,
and I just start crying.
I just start bawling.
It probably,
the first take was probably not usable.
So that's what was in the teapot note, guys.
It was a,
it was a note from John to me,
- A personal note about what it meant
to work with you on the show.
- Yeah.
About our time together on the show,
and it was really sweet.
- Well, that would completely wreck me.
- It was the sweetest note.
And you know, on camera, Pam says,
"I'll never say what it said, but just know it was perfect."
Well, I'll never say exactly what John wrote,
but I will say, just know it was perfect.
- Aw.
(outro music)