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A Festive Special is a catch-all title used to refer to both the Christmas and New Year Specials of televised Doctor Who. The term first came into official usage with the broadcast of the 2019 New Year's Day Special, Resolution, which was broadcast in leu of the previously-annual Christmas Special, breaking the, by-then, twelve-year-old tradition, and with it becoming apparent that then-showrunner, Chris Chibnall, intended to stick with New Year Specials for the then-foreseeable future.[1][2]
Technically speaking, the term refers to any standalone television episode to be broadcast over the holiday period that encompassed Christmas and New Year's Day.
The term was coined with the 2019 New Year Special, in spite of the fact that the first New Year Special was technically the second part of The End of Time, broadcast a near-decade earlier, which was considered more to be an extension of that year's Christmas Special.
The term does not apply to episodes that are broadcast over the holiday period that are a part of a regular series run, thus discounting Series 12 opener, Spyfall: Part 1, despite it first being broadcast on New Year's Day.