Christmas Viewing has started...

Last night we watched four of the annual Christmas-episodes-of-things. It used to be Christmas Eve, but there's so many of the things to get through now...

THE REAL CHRISTMAS SHOW. Gaby Roslin's video diary programme from 1996, covering Christmas for a group of different families. This gets more brilliant by the year. Thirteen years on, even the awfulness and toe-curling embarrassment of some moments have gained a pathos. And I'm convinced I saw that scouse woman on the plane to Portugal this summer. I keep revisiting this show each year and it's like a bunch of old friends - like a kind of festive GHOSTWATCH.

K9 AND COMPANY. The 1981 pilot for a show that didn't happen until twenty six years later. This is ropey in so many ways, but I love it. That magical moment when Sarah helps K9 out of the crate, where he's waited for years. The fact that he has to do battle with ordnance survey maps and a snotty public schoolboy, and satanist market gardeners as soon as he comes to life. Interesting to see how snappy and twitchy Sarah is all the way through this - and how other characters comment on her touchiness. The simpering, satin-clad hermaphrodite Juno who lives in a nearby cottage and is the obvious, sheeny red herring all the way through is a marvellous creation. They should bring her back these days, I think. This episode's at its best when it's closest to being the Wicker Man, featuring a cross journalist in mohair, a robot dog and sundry sly rustics.

THE BOX OF DELIGHTS ep 2. We're behind this year. Usually we watch an episode a week, leading up to Christmas. We should be coming to the end - but episode 2 is fun, anyway. It's the long animated sequence when Kay opens the box and Herne the Hunter asks him to come and run in the wild forest with him. They turn into deer and ducks and trout. The same series of transformations appears in both 'The Sword in the Stone' and 'The Dark is Rising.' Anyone know the source of this? The old magician mentor takes his apprentice on a swift run of changes?

CHRISTMAS SPIRITS. This is a 1983 ITV Ghost Story for Christmas written by Willis Hall. Faded aristos trying to hire out their haunted mansion to a film company as a location. Location scout gets stuck in house on Christmas Eve and gets driven batty by the spirits of murderous children. Obviously spurred on by the brilliant BBC Christmas Ghost Tales - ITV decided to have a stab at the genre one year. Hmmm... let's hire Elaine Stritch. The whole thing is wonderful and demented. I love the spectacle of Stritch racketing up and down the set, clutching the banisters and shrieking like a chainsmoking banshee - especially when Stephanie Cole hovers round her.

That's our first night of Christmas watching... by a crackling log fire - crackling old VHS and ancient studio-bound drama...

The other thing last night was the second episode of Radio4's 'Someone Like You' - five radio adaptations of classic Roald Dahl stories. They are done really, really well. Last night was 'Skin', which has never been creepier. Well done to whoever made them!