REST
BEST OF THE
LONG LOST FAMILY: CHRISTMAS REUNION
ITV, 9pm IF YOU can hold it together for even the first five minutes of this emotional onslaught of a show, you’ll be doing well.
Over the last eight years, Long Lost Family has reunited more than 200 relatives.
Now 120 of them come together for a Christmas lunch, some from as far as Nigeria, Australia and Barbados.
The bubbles and the tears flow of course, as they share memories and raise glasses, and we see clips from their original reunions.
If that doesn’t pull on the heart strings enough, they each bring an item that means something special, such as a teddy, a photo or piece of jewellery, and hang it on a tree enclosed in a bauble.
Davina Mccall and Nicky Campbell chat to the guests, including former England rugby player Spencer Brown, who is meeting his nephew for the first time.
There is also a performance from The Missing People’s Choir.
Heartwarming and heartbreaking, you know the drill.
INSIDE THE CHRISTMAS FACTORY
BBC2, 9pm HANDS up if there’ll be a purple tin of Quality Street in your living room this Christmas? That’s most of you then.
With his usual off-the-scale levels of enthusiasm, Gregg Wallace follows the factory process of the famous box of chocs, from “liquid chocolatey goodness” through to being packaged in those 12 different coloured shiny wrappers.
With the orange centres making an epic 45-minute journey along conveyor belts and toffee sticks disappearing under a chocolate waterfall, Nestle’s Halifax factory is basically a real life Willy Wonka workplace.
Gregg, eyes bulging at the sight, has plenty of facts. The factory produces two million tins every Christmas.
Meanwhile, Cherry Healey joins a crew of ornament decorators in Germany, applying glitter to an army of glass Santas, and she sees how the Royal Mail prints festive stamps.
Elsewhere, Ruth Goodman is on the historical trail of the Christmas turkey and discovers the origins of slapstick comedy.