commentary
From flaming time-killers to franchise-branded blazes, TV fireplaces are now “home for the holidays” to stay
Published
December 18, 2025 12:00PM (EST)
Yule log (Ptahi/Getty Images)
My holiday season officially starts on the night before Thanksgiving, snuggling under a thick throw while sharing a fireside catch-up with my best friend. Fortunately, she doesn’t have to get her hands dirty or even leave the couch to light up the ambience. She doesn’t even have a fireplace. All it takes is a few clicks of her remote to crank up one of the many flaming yule logs that TV offers, and voila: a maintenance-free, rustic glow is achieved.
Television has long been referred to as the electronic hearth, but the yule log’s ubiquity in the streaming era shifts that notion into oddly literal territory. My friend goes for Netflix’s original seasonal blockbuster, “Fireplace For Your Home,” which shows nothing but a burning wonder slowly fading to glowing coals and feathery ash. Is that a metaphor for life right now? Depends. How blue is your Christmas this year?
Regardless of how you’d answer that, the TV fireplace now comes in an array of forms, most of which are branded. There are too many, really. It has gotten ridiculous.
Since 2024, Netflix has featured a “Bridgerton”- themed fireplace, set in the middle of a Regency-era sitting room. You can almost picture a few of your favorite British nobles enjoying tea there or quietly poking each other’s pies somewhere outside of the frame.
HBO Max has presented its branded “Harry Potter” blaze and “A Very Merry Ricksmas Yule Log,” featuring Rick and Morty scrolling through interdimensional cable with the TV on mute, since 2022. And Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the World of Westeros’ conflagration, starring a dragon egg. All fire, no blood.
Blame market forces for this proliferation. Hearing Nat King Cole croon about chestnuts roasting on an open fire dozens of times is one of the many reminders that fireplaces are luxuries most of us don’t have. It’s a renters’ world, and few apartments and condos offer working versions to tenants. However, nearly everyone has a TV or tablet, and most have broadband access. Hence, the annual reign of small screen hearths.
(Magnolia Network) “The Farmhouse”
As with most holiday-related rituals, digging into the history of the yule log as a TV tradition dispels some of its mystical wonder, revealing its origin in desperate necessity. In November 1966, New York’s WPIX-TV had a 90-minute block of dead air that the studio’s president, Fred Thrower, decided to fill with footage of a roaring fire, calling it a Christmas card.
As a WPIX special commemorating the log explains, the inaugural special debuted on Christmas Eve that year and consisted of 17 seconds of footage looped for three commercial-free hours, which cost the station around $4000 in lost advertising revenue.