I Hate Christmas

I Hate Christmas (Italian: Odio il Natale) is an Italian romantic comedy television series produced for Netflix, starring Pilar Fogliati as Gianna, a thirty-year-old single nurse who lies to her family about having a boyfriend and gives herself 24 days to find a real partner before Christmas Eve.^{1 • 2} It is Netflix's first Italian Christmas series.¹

Origin as a remake

The series is a local adaptation of the Norwegian Netflix series Hjem til jul (internationally Home for Christmas, distributed in Italy as Natale con uno sconosciuto), created by Per-Olav Sørensen and starring Ida Elise Broch.³ The Norwegian original ran for two seasons, released in 2019 and 2020.⁷

The adaptation was deliberately localized. In an interview, a Netflix executive noted that Christmas traditions in Norway and Italy differ considerably, so the writers and producers worked to make the Italian version fully Italian.⁸

Production and cast

The series was produced by Lux Vide, a company of the Fremantle Group, and was the first series produced by Lux Vide for Netflix.^{2 • 9} The writing team of Elena Bucaccio, Viola Rispoli, and Silvia Leuzzi served as story editors, with a storyline adaptation credited to Luca Bernabei; direction is credited to CRIC, the duo of Davide Mardegan and Clemente De Muro.²

The cast is led by Pilar Fogliati as Gianna. Beatrice Arnera plays Titti, Fiorenza Pieri plays Margherita, Massimo Rigo plays Pietro, Nicolas Maupas plays Davide, and Marco Rossetti plays Carlo, two very different love interests Gianna meets over the course of the story.^{2 • 10}

Reception and performance

Season 1 entered Netflix's Global Top 10 TV (Non-English) list for two weeks and reached the Top 10 TV in 25 countries, including nine weeks in Italy's own Top 10.^{2 • 11} A December 2023 industry report on streaming data placed I Hate Christmas second among Italian titles with 10.9 million streams, and noted that European Christmas titles drew significant viewership that season, with the series cited alongside Norway's Christmas as Usual and Italy's Elf Me as evidence that non-English holiday stories can compete in a genre traditionally dominated by English-language productions.¹²

Critical response in Italy was mixed. Reviewers credited the series with capturing the chaos of the holiday season, its social hypocrisies, and family dynamics, and praised its lightness and pace, while criticizing forced gags, repetitive situations in the second half of episodes, and a script some found overly broad.^{13 • 7} On JustWatch's Italian listing, the series holds a 77% user rating and an IMDb score of 6.6.¹⁴

References

1. I Hate Christmas, Netflix Media Center
2. I Hate Christmas, Lux Vide
3. Odio il Natale – Serie TV (2022), ComingSoon.it
4. Odio il Natale, FilmTV.it
5. « Je déteste Noël » sur Netflix, Elle France
6. Here's Everything New on Netflix in December 2022, Time
7. Odio il Natale, la recensione, Dituttounpop
8. TV 12/2023 interview on Netflix scripted formats, e-duesse.it
9. Odio il Natale, recensione, TvBlog
10. SMS News Numero 56, Speciale Natale 2022
11. I Hate Christmas: Season 1 Top 10 TV countries, Lux Vide
12. Think Data December Digest 2023, The Film Agency
13. Odio il Natale, la recensione, Almanacco Cinema
14. Odio il Natale, JustWatch

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Sitcom and comedy series › Comedy series outside the US and UK › Premiered 2022 to 2026

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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