Call the Midwife Just Dropped the Wildest Christmas Special in 14 Years

 The Call the Midwife 2025 Christmas special takes Nonnatus House to Hong Kong after a shocking mission collapse, while Poplar faces displacement and loss. Tear-jerking moments mix with festive joy in this two-part BBC treat. Read now!

On Christmas Day 2025, BBC One and iPlayer drop the new Call the Midwife two-part Christmas special — and it’s big. For the first time ever, the midwives and nuns leave Poplar behind and fly to Hong Kong after a real-life-style disaster strikes their order’s mission house. At the same time, the folks back home deal with travellers with nowhere to live, a dying man looking for his childhood flat, and one very wild Christmas party.

The year is 1971 in the show’s timeline. Jenny Agutter, Helen George, Stephen McGann and the rest of the cast filmed partly on location in today’s Hong Kong, riding rebuilt rickshaws in 40°C heat while a typhoon circled. The result? Probably the most ambitious and emotional Christmas special the show has ever done.

Historical Background: Why Hong Kong in 1971?

Call the Midwife has mentioned the Hong Kong mission for years — it’s where the Turners’ adopted daughter May came from. In real 1970s history, British Hong Kong still had huge slums, including the infamous Kowloon Walled City — the most densely populated place on Earth at the time. The show uses a (fictional) subsidence disaster that destroys the Nonnatus branch house in Kowloon. Dozens die, orphans and mothers are homeless, and Nonnatus House sends an emergency team.

The theme running through both episodes is “unsteady ground” — literal sinking buildings in Hong Kong and emotional displacement everywhere else.

Key Events and Timeline – What Actually Happens

Part 1 – Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

• Fred and Violet Buckle fly to Hong Kong to visit Violet’s policeman son.
• They arrive carrying presents for the mission, only to find the entire building has collapsed into the ground. Many sisters and children are dead or injured.
• Urgent call goes back to Poplar. Sister Julienne, Sister Hilda, Nurse Crane, Sister Veronica and others organise a rescue flight.
• In Poplar, Cyril gets a strange letter: a terminally ill Jewish man (Henry Goodman) wants to rent his flat for any price because it was his childhood home.

Part 2 – Boxing Day and beyond

• In Hong Kong: the team faces gangsters who want the Order’s new property, Dr Turner and Shelagh search the Walled City for Esther and her desperately sick little boy.
• Sister Veronica finds an abandoned newborn in a cardboard box, bonds instantly, then has to give the baby back when the mother returns.
• Back home: Trixie and Geoffrey find the dying Mr Fischer collapsed in the snow. Rosalind, Joyce and the younger midwives throw an epic Christmas party chaos while the nuns are away.
• Sister Catherine helps Queenie, an Irish traveller, finally face the loss of her baby years earlier — pure tear-jerker territory.
• Snow falls, Fred is Santa (again), steel bands play, angels ride on parade floats.

Cast Tell All: Behind-the-Scenes in Hong Kong

The cast still can’t stop talking about it.

Jenny Agutter (Sister Julienne) said filming felt completely different because they worked in real streets near where the Walled City once stood. “We rode rickshaws they had to rebuild because none exist anymore. It was 110 % humidity — my linen habit was soaked by lunchtime.”

Cliff Parisi (Fred) sweated buckets in the Santa suit on the hottest day, helped by eight electric fans. Rebecca Gethings (Sister Veronica) remembers the night a typhoon hit: “We were locked in the hotel watching trees bend sideways. I sneaked out to film a quick video for my kids and nearly got blown away!”

Everyone agrees: the Hong Kong shoot is a career highlight.

Public Reaction & Early Social Media Buzz

Even though it hasn’t aired yet, the trailer dropped and X (Twitter) exploded:

• “Call the Midwife in HONG KONG?? Take my money” – 28 k likes
• “Sister Veronica finding that abandoned baby already has me sobbing and it’s only the trailer”
• Google Trends for “Call the Midwife Christmas 2025” spiked 400 % the day the BBC released first-look photos of nuns in rickshaws.

The show still pulls 7–8 million viewers every Christmas, so expect the usual flood of tears and mince-pie tweets.

2025 Update: Why This Special Feels Different

Heidi Thomas and the writers lean hard into displacement — refugees, travellers, dying men wanting one last look at home, nuns facing the end of the old East End mission days. In 2025, with migration stories still dominating headlines, the parallels hit harder than usual. Add real location filming and the budget shows on screen.

Long-Term Impact: Will Anything Change in Season 15?

Sister Julienne comes home changed — Jenny Agutter hints she now misses the raw frontline work the order used to do. Sister Veronica’s sudden longing for a baby looks set to run into the next series. And the Turners finally see the place their daughter came from.

FAQs

When does the Call the Midwife Christmas special 2025 air? Part 1 airs Christmas Day 2025 at 8 pm on BBC One, Part 2 on Boxing Day at the same time. Both drop on iPlayer straight after broadcast.

Do I need to have watched every season? No. The Christmas specials always work as stand-alones, but you’ll cry more if you know the characters.

Is the Hong Kong disaster based on a real event? No, it’s fictional, but subsidence and poor building standards were real problems in 1970s Hong Kong.

Will there be snow? Yes — fake snow in the UK scenes, real sweat in the Hong Kong ones.

Who plays the mysterious Mr Fischer? Henry Goodman, brilliant as always.

Is this the most expensive Christmas special they’ve done? The Hong Kong location shoot makes it one of the biggest, yes.

Final Thoughts

This year Call the Midwife gives us disaster, rickshaws, gangsters, abandoned babies, Irish travellers, Hanukkah in Poplar, and Fred Buckle sweating in a Santa suit under tropical sun. Same recipe — medical drama, social history, and guaranteed tears — just shaken up with passports and plane tickets.

Mark Christmas Day 8 pm in your calendar, keep tissues ready, and maybe book a cheeky Hong Kong holiday for 2026. You’ll want to see those streets for yourself.

Which moment are you most excited (or scared) to cry at? Drop it in the comments, share this on X, and let’s get the hankies ready together!

More festive TV docs on Flickcore.us → • The Crown Christmas episodes ranked • Doctor Who festive specials through the years • Why we still watch the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special every year

Sources: BBC Press Pack, Radio Times, interviews with Jenny Agutter, Helen George, Stephen McGann and full cast (November 2025)