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A Very British Christmas: Difference between revisions
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'''Christmas television'''. Viewing schedules will be crammed with [[Christmas Episode|Christmas Specials]], that is (partially) stand-alone Christmas episodes of programmes, the occasional [[Christmas Special|festive variety show]], clip/compilation/best-of shows, and other quirks of the season. A recent tradition has been to repeat much of last year's 'new' Christmas programming on the few days either side of December 25th.
* All details are to be found in the likes of the ''Radio Times'' TV listings magazine's Christmas bumper edition. Usually with some lovely festive-themed cover art. Recent covers have included a [[Doctor Who
* Christmas morning is when our thoughts turned to the bearded man who's given us such great happiness and joy down the years -- we refer, of course, to [[Meaningful Name|Nöel Edmonds]] with ''[[Noels Christmas Presents]]''.
* Already bastions of misery and despair, the soap operas of terrestrial television (''[[Eastenders]]'' and ''[[Coronation Street]]'' to name two) celebrate Christmas by ''sharply increasing the sheer amount of suffering'' that they inflict on their characters. Entire families gather around the tele-box to see who dies, who breaks up with who and which Christmas party is blown up by a freak lawnmower accident. This has a trope all of its own: '''[[Soapland Christmas]]'''.
* Other programmes will also do something special for their [[Christmas Episode]], whether this means ramping up the excitement, sending the cast on holiday so they're doing the same routine against a different backdrop, or just clearly establishing that it's Christmas by working any of the above into the plot.
** This applies even if the series no longer runs in its original format. For example, the much beloved sitcom The Royle Family has long since stopped making new series in 2000, but it's made four Christmas specials between 2006 and 2010. [[Only Fools and Horses]] did a few Christmas specials after the show had ended too.
* ''[[
** The usual Christmas tradition of the "classic" ''Doctor Who'' was simply to repeat all the episodes of a popular story all together in one long programme. The original series did once have its own [
* ''Top of the Pops'', former long-running music show that was killed off after a disastrous rebranding back in 2006, now survives as an annual special which serves mainly to announce who has secured the coveted Christmas Number 1 single (usually from a ''[[The X Factor]]'' winner).
* The BBC adaptation of The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe will crop up at some point.
* Christmas films -- terrestrial channels tend to show both more and higher-profile films (often ones receiving their terrestrial premiere) over the Christmas period (as exhaustively covered in the aforementioned ''[[Radio Times]]'' bumper edition, naturally). In addition, while the usual Christmas-themed films (from ''[[Its a Wonderful Life]]'' and ''[[Miracle On 34th Street (Film)|Miracle On Thirty Fourth Street]]'' (x2) to ''[[Elf]]'' and ''Bad Santa'') will inevitably be on, many thematically-unrelated ones have nonetheless become staples of the season -- ''[[
** One or more of the ''[[Wallace and Gromit]]'' films. In 2008, the UK premiere of ''A Matter of Loaf and Death'' was the highest-rated programme on Christmas Day.
** One or more ''[[Harry Potter (Film)|Harry Potter]]'' films come as standard over between Christmas Eve and New Years Day.
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