This is the first episode in which Mike's and Ed's offices have been switched; however, no explanation is ever given in the show as to why this happened.
Mike Baxter gives his grandson Boyd a snow globe to make Vanessa change her mind about Christmas without the kids. Tim Allen played Santa in The Santa Clause, when his son gets a snow globe to be able to call for his father whenever he needs him.
Tim Allen also starred in "Christmas with the Kranks", in which the Kranks tried to take a Christmas season off.
When Ed & Kyle were in the car and start hearing thumping and then pull over to open the trunk is taken from the 1990 movie Goodfellas, when Tommy, Jimmy and Henry are going upstate to dump the body of Billy Batts, whom Tommy had supposedly whacked.
This murder led to Tommy getting whacked, as Batts was a made man, requiring mob approval of his killing which Tommy, not being made, did not have. That was one of the pivotal points in Goodfellas.