CHRISTMAS TV GUIDE

Deck my Christmas TV shows with boughs of holly – and don’t stint on the tinsel either!

Don’t forget you have TWO brilliant magazines today, with unbeatable TV listings covering Christmas and all the way into the New Year

First, an affirmation. I love Christmas. No, I don’t love it as much as I did when I was a child – and that’s because I love it even more. Back then I was just the fledgling in the nest, the openbeaked recipient of whatever Santa and my parents slung my way, from Buckaroo! to chocolate buttons, from roast capon (we are an anti-turkey family) to Brussels sprouts. Today, the situation has changed little, excepting my discovery that turkey is actually rather delicious (sorry, mumsie) and that I have more control over events. And that includes control of the TV remote. Sometimes!

I also love Christmas television and the cheesier it is, the better I like it. Go corny or go home, is my festive motto. So will all telly producers please pile on the fake snow, crank up the tinsel and generally get their maxi-jingle on from now until Twelfth Night. From the reindeer cushions on the breakfast show sofas to the tinsel on the late-night chat-show sets, more is more is more.

We secretly know that shows such as The Great Christmas Bake Off (spread like thick frosting over Christmas Day and Boxing Day on BBC1) and the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special (Christmas Day, 6.45pm, BBC1) are probably recorded in a chilly barn in September. Yet that doesn’t dilute the appeal of Mary and Paul dressed like elves and holly-laden kitchens decked out like Santa’s grotto, while both the Strictly ballroom and the Strictly dancers are drowning in yuletide-themed décor.

Elsewhere, I used to hate it when the festive editions of favourite imported American shows such as Frasier and Friends were shown at the wrong time of year, always in the middle of the summer holidays, which made it all seem so second-hand and outdated.

Perhaps that’s why I now relish Christmas editions of home-grown sitcoms and soaps. Yet unlike the best turkey gravy, the plots never thicken. The action is always comfortingly familiar. Someone is always trying to thaw a turkey with a blow torch. Or cut it in half with a chainsaw, so the giant beast will fit into grandma’s oven. To attract maximum holiday audiences, long-running storylines hit their peak on 25 December; it’s a night when murderers are unmasked, lovers are discovered in wardrobes and, in a shocking festive edition of Home And Away In A Manger, a DNA test reveals Joseph is not the father of Jesus after all.

Add the annual unmissables such as The Snowman (Christmas Eve, 4.45pm, Channel 4), Carols From King’s (Christmas Eve, 5.45pm, BBC2) and The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast on Christmas Day (3pm, BBC1, ITV) and no wonder it’s called the most wonderful time of the year.