On tonight’s very special episode of Sister, Sister, Sherman Hemsley comes to visit because he is the twins GRANDPA!! Oh how I love a very special guest star. To be clear, he’s playing Ray’s dad and Ray is Tamera’s adoptive father while Lisa is Tia’s adoptive mother. And they’re all living together in a gorgeous house in suburban Detroit so that the twins can be reunited after being adopted separately at birth.

While the sisters are shopping, Grandpa talks to Lisa at her booth in the mall. He reveals to her that he’s deeply indebted to a loan shark. And later that same day, a mobster stops by the house. Tia pays him partially with the twins Christmas money, which is just under half of what her grandpa owes. She’s told that he better pay the rest tomorrow — or else…

Tia rushes to the mall to tell her mom what happened and discovers that their grandpa is trying to earn extra cash as a mall Santa. She then explains to Tamera that she bailed out Ray’s dad, and Tamera is like a little annoyed she didn’t consult her before giving the loan shark the money??? I mean!! There was no other option, Tamera!!

With their Christmas money now in the loan shark’s possession, the twins have to get jobs to cover the cost of Christmas gifts. Tamera works in retail and her boss is a really annoying girl from their school, Rhonda. But to be fair, Rhonda’s dress is super cute.

Tia works as Santa’s helper and uses her new job as an opportunity to update Grandpa on what happened at the house earlier. She encourages him to ask Ray for help, but Grandpa refuses because he feels like he wasn’t a good enough father to Ray growing up and he doesn’t want to be a burden now.

When the loan shark returns to the house again, Lisa pays him the rest of what Grandpa owes. Ray is almost none the wiser except the loan shark comes back to the house because he forgot to return the IOU. Damn, this guy is an ethical loan shark. I mean, comparatively speaking. So Ray goes down to the mall to confront his dad, who is still on the clock. Ray can only speak to him if he visits Santa lol. It’s all very sweet, actually.

Realizing that the twins and Lisa have spent all their money on helping his father, Ray treats them all to a very generous amount of Christmas gifts. And Grandpa repays the twins their money! He’s gotten a job training other mall Santas!

Very Special Lesson: If you ever find that you truly learn that consumer goods are not what’s important at Christmas, American capitalism will reward you with a last minute influx of cash so you can continue to feed the Christmas Industrial Complex. Or maybe it’s that hard work is rewarded. Yeah, let’s go with the latter.