CAUTION: SPOILERS for this episode of HBC!

This finale… you know, tbh, this really kind of taught me something about myself.

My whole life, I’ve scoffed and shaken my head at sports fanatics, the types who get so pumped about Their Team, who take it so personally, and become seriously down and depressed if Their Team plays a bad game. I’ve always looked at people like this and chuckled and thought to myself: “lol why? It’s literally just a sports game?” But then… but then! I took a look at myself watching the Season Twelve Finale of Holiday Baking Championship, and I was humbled. I get it now. I am no better than those die-hard football fans. This was personal. I needed Charles to win.

As I’ve mentioned time and again: Charles, in addition to being just a really cool and fun-to-watch contestant, is from my hometown. Like, one of my high school friends had a part-time job at the country club where Charles is executive pastry chef. So that’s like, what, four degrees of separation, between me and Charles. I practically know him. I’ve never seen another contestant on one of these shows from my hometown. So obviously I’ve been rooting for him since day one, with more enthusiasm than I’ve ever rooted for a baking show contestant in any show.

And it was so important to me that he win this. I really needed this, this year. It’s not been the best December ever, for me. One of my closest friends unexpectedly died last week (one of exactly two that I had), so I’ve been really down about that. And there’s been financial stress, on top of the stress of being mom to four little kids and trying to make ~Magical Christmas Memories~ happen for them on a tight budget while grieving and just managing normal life stuff, like keeping everyone fed and clean, which is already a freaking challenge in itself even without the holidays and the grief.

It’s been a lot of little stupid things, too. Like, since we moved into this house six years ago, I’ve been wanting to put Christmas lights up outside, but we were having an issue with the outdoor electrical, and it’s just never happened; and this year, we got the electrical figured out and we were finally going to do it – we got a late start, with all the money stress, but we did it, we bought the lights, and my husband hung them up carefully, following all the instructions on the little Command hook thingies, and they were up, and it was going to look so great… but then, at the very first rainfall, the Command hooks failed and the strings of lights just straight up fell off the house. Just lying there in the dirt in the rain. Which was pretty depressing.

It’s been a lot of things like that. So, I just really, really wanted and needed Charles to win this episode.

And, thank God!! My champion won! Finally, some good news.

Man, the tension! I couldn’t even watch, at the end, when they were about to call the winner. I was so sure they were going to give it to Ashleigh. I was squeezing my eyes shut, bracing myself. It just felt like they’d been building up to this. And often, on this show, they seem to prioritize narrative over accurate judging, which drives me insane.

But not this season! Thank God! I keep saying that over and over, lol perhaps I’m being dramatic, but this win really meant a lot to me. THANK GOD!

Charles killed it. All season, just killed it. He’s seriously one of the coolest contestants that’s ever been on one of these championships. As I pointed out in my post about the season premiere, the thing about Charles is, he’s so delightfully, quintessentially a C-Villian (right down to the name, Charles, I mean come on!). Our hometown, which I both love and love to make fun of, is a beautiful, wealthy, historic Southern college city: very smart, snooty, elitist, arrogant, liberal, BMW-driving, Whole Foods, organic, crunchy, Fine Arts, highbrow, and “cultured,” but also just a little weird, in places. Not that weird, but just a little… eccentric. And I feel like Charles as a character kind of embodies the whole essence of that city. He’s just so charming, so classy, so witty and put-together. In the early episodes, they really played up his arrogance and made him seem unapproachable, but as the season’s gone on, they’ve shown more of his warm, “human” side. I mean, he even said this episode that he was going to miss his fellow bakers, and stay in touch with them going forward! AWW. Stop. I love to see it.

His desserts have been next-level this whole season. Haven’t they? Honestly, it wasn’t until tonight that we saw him have a technical failure of any kind – when that peppermint brownie stuck to the pan – but even that, he came back from, wisely using that buttercream around the edges to hide any trace of damage. The only evidence that something went wrong was that apparently the ganache was unevenly distributed across the top.

Speaking of that, I noticed in both the first two challenges that Nancy and Kardea disagreed about Charles’s desserts. Nancy liked his black licorice tart, but Kardea complained about it. Then, Nancy loved his peppermint hot cocoa brownie, but Kardea complained that she got too much ganache (which, come on, is that really a problem, lol? I dunno about you guys, but my fat ass could house a whole bowl of straight ganache). I was starting to wonder if Kardea had some kind of beef with Charles – but then, in the last challenge, she defended him when Zac was whining about the ribbons on his cake. Which, I’m glad she did! That was such a minor imperfection, and, as Kardea pointed out, it was only even mentionable because the rest of Charles’s creation was so perfect that it made even the most minor imperfection evident.

I do like Zac as a judge, though. What do you guys think? I wish Duff could have been there (is he okay?! I follow him on IG, and he just posted something for Hannukah today, so I know he’s alive – hopefully it was just a temporary illness or something!), but, if someone has to replace him on this finale, I’m glad it was Zac. “If you say ‘naughty elf’ three times, I appear,” lol that was spot on.

There was a lot going on in this episode, whew. The first challenge, the contestants had the opportunity to bid on the choice of ingredients by cutting time off their bake – and Charles was the only one ballsy enough to actually bid a substantial chunk of his time! Twenty whole minutes – and he still managed to produce an immaculate-looking dessert, décor and all. Licorice was a bold choice. Almost no one likes that shit, haha. It looked beautiful though. I was surprised by Charles’s other choices, though – I really thought he’d give sauerkraut to his archnemesis, Ashleigh, but instead he gave her the one that I think was the easiest to work with: avocado. And he gave red curry paste to Chase, which, Chase is so good with flavors, I already knew he was going to produce something incredible with that curry paste. (I’m not personally big on the spicy + chocolate combo, but his red curry chocolate mousse cake sounded kind of awesome.)

Poor little Tarek! Once again, coming in just shy of the win. I know he’s probably annoyed about that. But, he did really well. He had a little attitude on him today! Like when Charles entered into the first challenge twenty minutes after everyone else, coolly saying I’m not behind as he was getting started, and Tarek echoes “iM nOt bEhiNd”, lol! And then, with the butt! “Hi, my name’s Tarek and I’m five years old, and I made a butt.” I only wish that his “butt” had been more successful, because, I dunno, maybe I’m five years old as well, but that was hilarious. My husband was saying that he should have gone all in and made butts for the second and third challenges, too.

I was sad to see Nico eliminated though. Especially after all that emotional build-up in the first half of this episode. How dare they include all that and then eliminate him! Ugh. A bit too much emotion for me, there. I was a bit overloaded and uncomfortable. And also, wtf, why did they eliminate him for those hot cocoa tiramisus? Those looked incredible! They were stunning! With the little white chocolate cups, am I right? Literally the judges’ only issue with him was not enough chocolate?! I was seriously confused why they eliminated Nico instead of Tarek here. Tarek’s pots de crème sounded seriously good (mmm, bowl of ganache), but were much less ambitious and festive than Nico’s. I don’t really understand this judgment call.

I would have been happy if Nico had won. He was a close second favorite, for me, after Charles. He’s just been a joy to watch – what an adorable and lovely little person. I wish he’d been in the final challenge. But, at least he made it this far. I can’t wait to see what he does next.

And, the important thing was that Charles won. Thank God. That was the only thing I wanted for Christmas.

Readers, what did we think?! Was this the best finale or what? What an absolute cluster of a season, but it ended well. How are we feeling about it? Leave me a comment. Because, I lied, Charles winning was not the only thing I want for Christmas; I also want your comments.

Can’t forget the final stats:

Superlatives from the judges: 1, Kardea to Charles. Season Total: 9

Judge says “remember, you’re on Holiday Baking Championship”: 1, Nancy to Nico. Season Total: 2

Nancy says “bite of food”: 2.5 plus Kardea also said it once, so a season total of three times plus two half times plus a bonus from Kardea.

High point: OBVIOUSLY CHARLES WINNING!

Low point: I COULD HAVE USED ABOUT 5-10 MORE MINUTES OF CHARLES GLOATING AND CELEBRATING.

The dessert that I would most have liked to eat: A lot of good ones this episode, but, it’s gotta be Ashleigh’s Chocolate Cannoli Cake in the final challenge. The goat cheese addition to the cream cheese filling sounded amazing.