Saturday Night Live closed out 2020 strongly with host Kristen Wiig and musical guest Dua Lipa this weekend. In recent years, SNL has generally been very good at nailing the end-of-the-year holiday episodes, with a mix of sentimental humor and cringe comedy, and this episode was no different. Almost every sketch had a Christmas theme, Wiig brought just the right effervescent energy, there was plenty of musical material and we finally got the ending to Home Alone 2 we always deserved.

There have been a few pretty rough, unmemorable episodes of SNL during this season so far, but even when the sketches haven't been working, Weekend Update has been a bright spot almost every week. This week we got a jam-packed update with three guests: Kenan Thompson played Willie, Michael Che's always confused neighbor; Chris Redd unveiled a great Smoke Robinson impression so he could explain his Hanukkah mispronunciation video last week; and Heidi Gardner, who just keeps coming up with perfect Update characters, brought Instagram influencer Landis Trotter with her sponsored holiday gift suggests.

And to top it off, we got Michael Che and Colin Jost doing Christmas Joke Swap 2020, their annual bit where they make each other read jokes they've never seen before live on air, which led to the single funniest joke of the episode at the very end here.

My favorite regular sketch of the night was Christmas Morning, which combined a fun holiday song with an important moral about paying more attention to moms over the holidays.

U.S.O. Performance was one of the highlights of the evening, in which Wiig, Bowen Yang and Dua Lipa performed a made-up gender-swapped pop song "Love Bite" that was absurdly committed and just so well done.

Wiig was joined by Maya Rudolph and Kate McKinnon for Kristen Wiig 2020 Holiday Monologue, in which the three gifted current and former cast members sang a very fun, semi-nonsensical version of “My Favorite Things” to close out the year.

The big news with the Pence Gets the Vaccine Cold Open is that Jim Carrey is done playing Joe Biden, and has passed the baton to Alex Moffat. It's great that SNL is letting an actual cast member play Biden, although this was just a brief appearance and Moffat clearly is going to need some more time to get comfortable in the role. I also wouldn't put it past SNL to keep letting random people step into the Biden role over the next four years, considering they've already had six people play him so far.

Beck Bennett is always good at playing Pence and similar types, although I really did not care for the low-hanging gay jokes. The sketch also included appearances from Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris, Kate McKinnon as Rudy Giuliani, and Kenan Thompson as a very confused Ben Carson.

Kristen Wiig brought back two of her old characters: I preferred Home For Christmas, which featured Sue, the woman who can't keep a secret to herself; and Secret Word Holiday Edition, where Wiig's wacky old timey Hollywood diva Mindy Elise Grayson competes against Kate McKinnon's reclusive actress Elka Legerdi.

Another holiday-themed sketch was The Grinch, in which Kristen Wiig and Mikey Day develop an intimate relationship with the Grinch (Pete Davidson)—not one of my favorites, but I was very impressed that Davidson didn't break during the entire sketch.

The alternate ending to Home Alone 2 included some improbably great impressions, including Melissa Villaseñor as Macaulay Culkin and Kyle Mooney as Joe Pesci. (Surprising, it did not include Alec Baldwin's Trump, despite his famous controversial Home Alone 2 cameo.)

I don't necessarily think FX on Hulu's new series A Teacher has quite entered the cultural zeitgeist, but apparently it is famous enough for SNL to decide to parody it. This pre-taped sketch gives Ego Nwodim a great role as a teacher with no interest in an affair with a student played by new castmember Andrew Dismukes.

There was one cut-for-time sketch, and it was (surprise surprise) a Kyle Mooney joint: Middle-Aged Mutant Ninja Turtles: Episode 2, which reimagined the heroic turtles dealing with more adult problems. It felt like something out of mid-'90s SNL, and was very good.

In addition to appearing in the U.S.O. Performance sketch, musical guest Dua Lipa performed her infectious pop singles "Don't Start Now" and "Levitating."