The Ghost of Xmas TV Past

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

So said St Paul, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. As far as I’m concerned, this is one of the best lines in the Bible – right up there with 2 Kings 2: 23-24 (the bit about bears eating 42 youths who took the piss out of slaphead prophet Elisha).

"Go on baldy - AHHHH"

Christmas is a time (isn’t it?) when childish things have a tendency to come back out, no matter how carefully we have put them away.

We imagine (don’t we?) that because we remember things a certain way, that this is how they in fact should be – whether they were or were not actually ever so. And when things do not live up to those imaginary expectations, we are disappointed. The secretly-nurtured belief we all hold quietly in our hearts – that the present will never live up to the past - becomes ever so slightly harder.

Crikey. Two Bible references and a load of pop-psychology waffle and we’re only four paragraphs in. Might as well be in church, eh readers?

My point (aren’t we?) is that while nostalgia can be fun and comforting, when it starts to makes you resentful, you have to let it go.

That’s why it’s time to stop pretending that Christmas TV is some great collective experience, something makes the nation collectively pause to huddle together around a Radio Times.

Oh yes. This is about what’s on TV at Christmas.

If you want profundity, you’ve come to the wrong place.

Films

BBC1 gave us Toy Story 3 in the 3pm Christmas Day slot. I remember being so excited I could barely contain myself some year in the 1980s when it was Dumbo in that spot, or when it was The Empire Strikes Back.

My kids got Toy Story 3 on DVD LAST CHRISTMAS. They watch it IN THE CAR.

Network television – you cannot compete with the availability of films through other media. So don’t bother. If it’s nostalgia that makes you broadcast “family classics” at set times over the period, in my humble opinion that is BAD NOSTALGIA.

Classic Christmas Specials

What is this supposed to mean to me?

 I have and do enjoy a “classic” Christmas special. When I have been trapped indoors drinking all day and have finally got the kids to go to sleep, I can certainly see the appeal of watching a festive Morecambe and Wise Show or Only Fools and Horses.

But that’s not because it is actually any good. It’s because it’s comfortable and familiar, like an old pair of jogging bottoms. I can smile along without having to think at all, because I’ve seen them all a hundred times before.

It’s not that these programmes actually entertain. Instead they evoke the memory of having been entertained. Which may very well be a completely false memory.

Morecambe and Wise – for example – did their last Christmas special in 1983. I was 7 years old then. What did they mean to me then? Why should they mean anything more to me 30 years later?

Nothing, other than that over the years, culture has implanted the idea in my head that Eric and Ernie are an integral part of the Christmas experience.

Operation Yewtree, by the way, looks rather more likely to eradicate a lot of this kind of ‘70s and ‘80s nostalgia much quicker than any kind of critical reassessment of what our “traditions” mean to us will. 

Because you can’t have Christmas Top of the Pops without a memory of Jimmy Saville bedecked in tinsel, can you?

I notice that Rolf Harris has been swiftly replaced as the narrator of Olive the Ostrich. Innocent until proven guilty, eh Nick Jr?

Modern Christmas Specials

It doesn’t snow at Christmas in this country.

People do not buy the biggest Christmas tree they can find – with hilarious consequences.

Christmas jumpers are only worn ironically.

Why do programme-makers continue to perpetuate these myths about what Christmas is like and what people do at Christmas that are nothing but remnants of Victorian sentimentalism, 1970s bad taste and echoes of what they’ve seen in other Christmas episodes?

Oh Miranda...

How about someone tries to depict a 21st century Christmas that actually reflects people’s real experiences rather than a mid-century fever dream and hope against hope?

Or rather, don’t even bother. Because the TV may be the focal point of the living room – but unless it’s plugged into the Blu Ray Player, the Xbox and the internet – it is just not the focal point of family life any more.