From classic tales of Christmas past to the Doctor's journeys in winters yet to come, we’ve picked out ten adventures from the Big Finish back catalogue to recommend for your Yuletide listening.

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Now for the top ten...

Doctor Who: Blood on Santa’s Claw and Other Stories 

If the puntastic title wasn’t enough to convince you, this anthology of four short festive tales begins with Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor pretending to be Santa Claus in order to solve a murder – and only gets madder from there. 

Throughout the four stories, the Doctor’s accompanied by his companions Peri (Nicola Bryant) and Joe (Luke Allen-Gale) – wait, who? Listen to the end to find out. 

Indie Mac User praised Blood on Santa’s Claw and Other Stories  as “an extremely creative and festive release full of a variety of surprises”, while Blogtor Who’s effusive review said it “will accompany The Chimes of Midnight as a seasonal must in the years to come.” 

Speaking of which… 

Doctor Who: The Chimes of Midnight 

In the classic tradition of ghost stories for Christmas, this 2002 Monthly Adventures release by Robert Shearman tells a very creepy tale. 

The Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann) and Charley (India Fisher) land in an Edwardian mansion on Christmas Eve, 1906. Every hour, on the hour, something is killing off the servants. Time is running out as the chimes of midnight approach… 

Over twenty years since its release, The Chimes of Midnight remains a favourite of many fans. Who Back When ranked it number one in their countdown of Eighth Doctor main range stories, saying “Now this is what I call a mystery… What Robert Shearman did here was masterful and if I said any more about this story, I’d give the game away.” 

The Box of Delights 

From the Big Finish Classics range, this full-cast adaptation of John Masefield’s beloved novel has a star-studded cast including Sir Derek Jacobi, Mark Gatiss, Louise Jameson and David Warner. 

Young Kay is travelling home for Christmas when a mysterious Punch and Judy man entrusts him with a magical box. The boy soon finds himself travelling through time on a series of fantastic adventures, pursued by gangster musicians, pirate rats, and the sinister magician Abner Brown. 

The cosy festive fantasy impressed reviewers including Set the Tape, who said “this feels like the ideal treat for putting on as you wrap presents and prepare food” and SFcrowsnest, who said it “absolutely encapsulates the perfectly crisp and tingly feeling of Christmas approaching.” 

The Paternoster Gang: Heritage 4: Merry Christmas, Mr Jago 

Victorian London is – likely thanks to Charles Dickens, with help from the Muppets – a setting strongly linked to Christmas, and so what better festive crossover than characters from Doctor Who’s two Victorian-era spin-offs? 

In Merry Christmas, Mr Jago, classic and modern Doctor Who comes together as Vastra, Jenny and Strax (Neve McIntosh, Catrin Stewart and Dan Starkey) spend Christmas with Henry Gordon Jago (Christopher Benjamin), only to discover nasty surprises in their presents. 

Other stories on this list lean into the darker sides of Christmas, but this is an out-and-out romp, as We Are Cult highlighted: “The goal here is simple, to have a lot of festive fun … The threat owes much to Gremlins, while all the biggest laughs come from Strax playing the role of Kevin in Home Alone.” 

Short Trips: O Tannenbaum 

In this short story release from 2017, narrated by Peter Purves, the First Doctor and Steven land in a winter wonderland, only to find something very odd about this particular alien forest – the pine trees are out to get them! 

As Blogtor Who said, “O Tannenbaum feels like a modern series Christmas special… You’ve got trees that come to life, the Doctor befriending a scared child, a winter wonderland and a strange happy ending.” 

If you’ll only have time for brief bursts of audio adventure this Christmas, other suitable Short Trips include The Little Drummer Boy – another First Doctor story set after The Daleks’ Master Plan’s festive fourth-wall break – and Seventh Doctor tales The Devil’s Footprints and The Hesitation Deviation. 

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles Volume 5: Spirit of the Season 

The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles arc pairing up Jacob Dudman’s take on the Doctor with Safiyya Ingar as companion Valarie has become a firm fan favourite in recent years, and no Eleventh Doctor series would be complete without a Christmas special. 

In Georgia Cook’s Spirit of the Season, the Doctor and Valarie find themselves in what seems to be a Victorian mansion at Christmas, along with other lost travellers and a young girl named Clara who wants to kill them. 

The Review Lab described the story as “both haunting and heartbreaking”, while Who Review said “This is essentially Doctor Who written by M. R. James, and it works so, so well.”  

This box set was shortlisted for a BBC Audio Drama Award 2025. 

Bernice Summerfield: The Christmas Collection 

Professor Bernice Summerfield, time-travelling archaeologist and former companion of the Doctor, has been central to Big Finish audio since 1998, and has her fair share of Christmas stories to tell. 

This anthology comprises ten short story readings, set across different periods of her life, from St Oscar’s University to the Unbound Universe, and featuring everything from cyborg reindeer to a VR reconstruction of Christmas. 

Indie Mac User described the collection as “a success … for new and old listeners alike”, particularly enjoying the section focusing on Benny’s time in the Braxiatel Collection, which “gives the listener one hit after another”. 

Torchwood: The Crown

This standalone story from the Torchwood Monthly Range follows the Institute’s founder, Queen Victoria (Rowena Cooper) – or someone who believes she is her, and is now living in an asylum. 

One Christmas Eve, she’s visited by Doctor Gideon Parr (Derek Riddell), and tells him a story about the terrifying Ferryman and a cursed crown. 

Winter is Coming said: “The Crown is a wonderfully atmospheric Victorian ghost story by Jonathan Barnes, and one that’s perfect listening for this time of the year.” 

Other Torchwood stories with a Christmas setting include The Empire Man, another Queen Victoria story, the Ianto-focused The Grey Mare, and this month’s Reflect, in which Ace and Mr Colchester share ghost stories. 

The Chimes 

While A Christmas Carol may be seen as the quintessential Christmas story, it’s less well known that Charles Dickens followed it up with a second festive novella, The Chimes. In 2013, Big Finish released a full-cast audio adaptation, scripted by Jonathan Morris and starring Toby Jones. 

The Chimes follows a poor man driven to despair by the harsh realities of society. He’s starting to believe that he’s unloved and unworthy of sympathy – but the goblins of the Chimes set out to prove him wrong. 

“This lively dramatisation gives you exactly what you want and expect”, according to The Guardian, who concluded by saying “this is a lovely Christmas treat, easy listening at its best.” 

Doctor Who: Ravenous 2: Better Watch Out/Fairytale of Salzburg 

If a trip to Europe for the Christmas markets is out of your budget this year, travel with the Eighth Doctor, Liv (Nicola Walker) and Helen (Hattie Morahan) to Salzburg. 

Their picturesque festive escape is, as the Doctor puts it, “very chocolate box, very biscuity”, but like every relaxing trip the TARDIS takes, things take a turn for the dramatic, with the Krampus – a demonic counterpart to Saint Nick – causing havoc across the city. 

This two-part story was praised by reviewers including Doc Oho, who said: “Believe the hype that will surround this release, it’s a Big Finish Christmas special that delivers on its promise and out-Noels the TV series by getting the atmosphere right, the imagery right and the dark thread of scary Christmas myths right.” 

The Eighth Doctor has appeared twice on this list, but he’s visited many more Christmases across time and space. He also had three festive adventures with Charley and Audacity in In the Bleak Midwinter, and took Lucie Miller home for Christmas in Death in Blackpool.