Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
CHRISTMAS STARTS HERE
From Kirstie’s crafts to classic cartoons, the schedules are starting to fill up with festive treats. Here’s our guide to what’s on...
Pour a glass of sherry, warm the mince pies and count down to Christmas! The big day may still be over a fortnight away, but try telling that to the TV companies.
The schedules are snowed under with festive fare. Kirstie Allsopp shows you how to create your own personalised yuletide in Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas on Channel 4 ( Monday-Friday, 5pm). This week features a carver who sculpts fruit into spectacular festive scenes, gifts for pets and a fragrant alternative to shop-bought perfume.
You may pick up some tips on how to help the children construct any tricky Lego sets they receive, with Celebrity Lego Masters At Christmas. The Channel 4 show unites talented young builders with well-known fans of the toy – including Tenable host Warwick Davis and comedian Rob Beckett – in a battle for the Lego Masters Christmas Trophy (Tuesday, 8pm).
Still looking for a gift with the wow factor? Then tune in to Christmas Shop Well For Less on BBC1 (Wednesday, 8pm). Hosts Alex Jones and Steph McGovern examine this year’s interactive, must-have toys, and help a family control their festive spending.
Culinary advice and inspiration is everywhere. Nadiya’s Party Feasts on BBC2 will have tastebuds everywhere tingling when The Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain fuses ingredients from across the world (Friday, 8pm). Paul Ainsworth and Catherine Fulvio, meanwhile, with assistance from Dominic Littlewood, aim to cook the perfect turkey on The Best Christmas Food Ever (Monday, 3.40pm, BBC1).
Plenty of programmes remind us that Christmas isn’t fun for everyone. There may be tinsel in their cabs but the paramedics who feature in W documentary Inside The Ambulance At Christmas have to treat a girl in agony after she tum- bled on the ice and a 75-year-old man who’s fallen off a roof (Friday, 8pm).
The NHS features in Channel 5’s Kids A&E At Christmas (Wednesday, 8pm) too. The staff at Sheffield Children’s Hospital belt out The Twelve Days Of Christmas before ten-year-old Josh takes centre stage. Over-excited at the prospect of Christmas Day, he’s kicked a wall – with painful consequences!
Old People’s Home For 4 Year Olds: Christmas (Wednesday, 9pm) is a festive special of the Channel 4 documentary that shows the mutual benefits of youngsters spending time with the elderly. Tenor Alfie Boe turns up to sing for the residents of Lark Hill Retirement Village, but will tap-dancing Lilian be well enough to perform too, after a recent fall?
Christmas wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the circus, and Daredevils
& Divas tomorrow (9pm, BBC4) marks the 250th anniversary of the first big top. Acts include Cirque Bijou, who’ll attempt the first-ever high-wire crossing of the River Wear in Sunderland.
Also aiming high is George Clarke, who visits a ski lodge disguised as a boulder in the Alps, in Channel 4’s Amazing Spaces Winter Wonderland (Thursday, 8pm). Across the snowy peaks, Giles Coren and Monica Galetti are guests at the Kulm Hotel in St Moritz, the birthplace of winter tourism more than 150 years ago, in BBC2’s Amazing Hotels: Life Behind The Lobby Christmas Special (Thursday, 9pm).
Seasonal films include a trio of animated classics: Father Christmas, with the voice of Mel Smith, The Snowman and The Snowman And The Snowdog (tomorrow, from 4.05pm, Channel 4).