Film choice

This magical tale deserves to be rediscovered. It embodies Christmas with all the warm nostalgia you’d expect, but (at the height of the Eighties) it adds a telling metaphor about commercialisation too. David Huddleston is the perfect Santa, but his top elf, Patch (Dudley Moore), makes a bad batch of toys and flees to New York to work for a Machiavellian manufacturer (a cigar-sucking John Lithgow).

Elf (2003) ITV, 6.00PM ★★★★

Will Ferrell’s brand of humour may not be to everyone’s taste – it has, on occasion, even been labelled “puerile” – but there are still plenty of giggles to be had from Jon Favreau’s sweet-natured Christmas comedy. Ferrell plays a human called Buddy who was brought up as an elf on the North Pole. When Buddy finds out his true origins, he travels south, on a mission to find his family in a rather elf-sceptical Manhattan.

Brooklyn (2015) BBC TWO, 8.00PM ★★★★★ Santa Claus: The Movie (1985) ITV3, 9.25AM ★★★★

With this pulse-quickening Irish immigrant tale, adapted from Colm Tóibín’s 2009 novel, director John Crowley has pulled off something special. Adrift in Fifties New York, young Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) meets sweet Italian-American Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen) – but Eilis’s roots are calling her home. With an utterly heartbreaking performance from Ronan at its centre, Brooklyn is an emotional masterpiece.