Two goals in seven minutes at the start of the second half brought more Boxing Day delight and a fourth successive win for Huddersfield Town.
Boss David Wagner was used to a Winter break in Germany but now the man who recently rejected the chance to return to his native country to manage Wolfsburg is busy with football rather than family over the festive period.
On December 26 2015, Wagner watched Town beat Preston North End 3-1 at the John Smith’s Stadium in what was only his seventh match in charge.
At that stage he was starting to implement his plan for full-throttle football and a ‘Terrier identity’.
While Wagner insists his team are far from the finished article, they have arrived at the halfway stage of the current Championship season sitting pretty in fourth place.
Town are a force to be reckoned with, and fans are dreaming of seeing their side play top-flight football for the first time since 1972.
The head coach has often said he and his players are workers not dreamers.
And it’s this industry, based on impressive fitness levels as well as football finesse, which has helped make this campaign so entertaining, exciting and encouraging.
The fans are playing their part, with the 22,100 recorded gate (1,541 Nottingham Forest followers) the highest for a Boxing Day game in the club’s 21 seasons at the stadium.
They witnessed a 13th win in 23 games which was less tight than the scoreline would suggest.
Forest’s 25th-minute opener was neatly converted by Portuguese forward Hildeberto Pereira, who held off Michael Hefele before lofting the ball home.
But it came a little against the run of play and was tough on Town’s debutant keeper Joel Coleman, brought into the starting side after on-loan Liverpool man Danny Ward fell ill.
Town’s other three loan men, Manchester City’s Aaron Mooy, Chelsea’s Kasey Palmer and Ingolstadt’s Elias Kachunga, were once again to the fore.
It was Palmer who claimed the 53rd-minute equaliser - Tareiq Holmes-Dennis’s corner was met by Mooy, whose ball into the box was headed goalwards by the Town forward.
The ball hit the underside of the bar, and as Nahki Wells put keeper Vladimir Stojkovic under pressure, bounced down and ended up in the net.
The 60th-minute winner came courtesy of Forest defender Michael Mancienne.
As Rajiv van La Parra, who once again produced some lovely footwork throughout the contest, crossed, the former Chelsea and Hamburg man turned the ball past Serbian stopper Stojkovic as he attempted to clear.
Mancienne’s misery was completed in the 89th minute when he was sent off for a second yellow card offence.
Already cautioned for fouling Palmer, he was then punished for hurling the ball down after a throw-in went the way of Town rather than Forest.
The East Midlands side are 18th in the table and are now four without a win with pressure mounting on French boss Philippe Montanier.
There are no such worries for Wagner, the first manager since Lee Clark in 2011/12 to lead Town to four straight wins and the first to achieve it at Championship level since Steve Bruce in 1999/2000, when his side finished eighth.
