Your Soap Opera 2019 Happy Holiday Viewing Schedule

With Christmas and New Year’s just around the corner, it’s the time of year when your favorite soap characters celebrate — and your favorite soap opera just might take a day off. Get ready to adjust your soap viewing accordingly with Soap Hub’s annual holiday schedule.

Days of our Lives

You can catch your Salem friends all week as DAYS will air brand-new episodes from December 23-27 as normal. However, on New Year’s Day, January 1, 2020, DAYS will not be seen at all due to alternative NBC programming.

General Hospital

On Monday, December 23 GH will air a very special Christmas Carol episode with lots of surprises. Then, it’s time to take a few days off.

GH will air an encore episode on Tuesday, December 24 and the soap will be preempted altogether on Christmas Day, December 25. On December 31, GH will once again air an encore episode and on New Year’s Day, January 1, it will be preempted for sports.

The Young and the Restless

YR fans will not have to leave Genoa City at all. CBS plans to air all-new episodes both this week and next week and it won’t be preempted at all for the holidays.

The Bold and the Beautiful

On Christmas Day, expect an encore episode of BB while new episodes air the rest of the week. Things get a little more complicated for New Year’s week. On New Year’s Eve, December 31, the East Coast will see a new episode, while the West Coast will be preempted for The Sun Bowl football game.

However, West Coast BB fans will be able to see the December 31 episode on January 1. East Coast fans will see an encore episode.

More on Soap Opera History

Soap opera began in the early 1900s, as radio broadcasts. Soap companies were behind the conception of the daytime dramas because they wanted to sell soaps to stay-at-home-moms. They did their job and also launched a lifelong programming format, the soap opera.

Spanning more than nine decades, American sudsers have seen the rise and fall of daytime soaps. In the heyday of soaps in the early 1980s, there were up to 13 different soap operas broadcast. However, over the years, the number has declined. Currently, there are only four American soap operas on the air. They include Days of our Lives, The Young and the Restless (YR), The Bold and the Beautiful (BB), and GH. For more facts about soap opera history, head over to our archives and relive the glory days of daytime!