Review

Christmas culture

Culture

Film & TV

24 December 2024

6 min read

The twelve days of Christmas TV

What to watch across the festive season.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead.

At a Christmas party, friend smile, laugh, and collapse in a heap on a sofa.

This is occurin'.

Christmas approaches! We are soon to begin the twelve-day marathon of celebrating the birth of Christ through food, drink, and…collapsing in front of the telly! It is a season of great joy and gladness, but also one of physical and mental exhaustion. To make it all a little easier I have finely combed through the Christmas edition of the Radio Times to present to you the one can’t miss televisual offering for each of the twelve days. Consider this my gift to all the readers of Seen & Unseen; hopefully a little more practical than a partridge in a pear tree.

On the first day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Gavin & Stacey: The Finale

Christmas Day, BBC 1, 9pm

The first G&S Christmas Special is an annual tradition in my household. My wife and I are guaranteed to watch it at least once in the run-up to Christmas. It is an example of a truly perfect piece of television: masterfully combining the necessarily contrived and mawkish sentimentality of Christmas telly, and the absurdist/realist/deadpan comedy that endeared the series to so many. The comeback Christmas Special in 2019 was a let-down on the night (I had such high expectations) but has grown on me over the years: nowhere near as good as the original, too self-referential and mannered for its own good, but still darn-funny, and acting as a rather sweet meditation on aging and parenthood. Christmas Day is all about family – be it our own family, or the Holy Family of Bethlehem – so why not see the day out in the warm glow of the Shipman-West family.

On the second day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Zulu

Boxing Day, Channel 4, 3.50pm

This one is personal for me. This is one of the first films I remember watching with my father, around the Christmas season. Glorious cinematography, a pacey plot, an electrifying final set-piece (which, 60 years later, is still more engaging than most of the bigger budget CGI shlock you can see today), a smattering of Welsh patriotism, and Michael Caine doing a posh accent. This is a classic for a reason: the remarkable story of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift combined with a searing and sympathetic exploration of the British class system, ending with a meditation on both the unifying and horrifying nature of war. If you’re suffering from over-indulgence on Boxing Day I can’t think of a better tonic.

On the third day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Pitch Perfect

27 December, ITV 2, 9pm

The sequels very much delivered diminishing returns, but the original is such a wholesome piece of film-making. A celebration of music, growing-up, sisterhood and girl-power…it is feel-good fare from beginning to end. Anna Kendrick shines with raw singing-star-power, while Rebel Wilson provides just the right amount of comic relief. After the high of Christmas Day, and the slow come-down of Boxing Day, this film is like a warm bath of feel-good aca-enjoyment.

On the fourth day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Maggie Smith at the BBC

28 December, BBC 2, 7pm

A celebration of the career of Maggie Smith on what would have been her 90th birthday. If that precis doesn’t hook you, then we can’t be friends.

On the fifth day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

The Fugitive

29 December, Channel 5, 4.35pm

I can’t think of many thrillers better than this. From the very first scene this film has you on the edge of your seat asking the most terrifying of existential questions…

WHY DOES HARRISON FORD HAVE A BEARD!?!?!?

The tension only ratchets up from there! Harrison Ford plays the character he was born to play: a slightly gruff man, down on his luck, full of ingenuity, trying to prove that he didn’t murder his wife. Tommy Lee-Jones is similarly expertly cast as the long-suffering law-man who doesn’t follow procedure…no, he feels the case in his bones! The film rips along as such a rollicking pace that you’ll feel like it’s just started by the time it has finished.

On the sixth day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Rocketman

30 December, Channel 4, 9pm

The music of Elton John is indestructible.

On the seventh day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Jools’ Annual Hootenanny

New Year’s Eve, BBC 2, 11.30pm

By now this is has become a cross between a National Treasure and a National Institution, and I cannot comprehend people who see the New Year in with anything else on their telly.

On the eighth day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Airplane!

New Year’s Day, ITV 4, 9pm

This is the funniest film ever made. That is an indisputable fact, whether your metric is quantity or quality. The jokes come at a machine-gun rattle, and every single one hits their target! Absurdism, slapstick, wordplay, and the straight-face of Leslie Nielsen…THE FUNNIEST FILM EVER MADE!

On the ninth day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World

2 January, BBC 2, 10pm

Russel Crowe deserved to have this film be the start of a worldwide phenomenal franchise; especially as Patrick O'Brian left us with twenty novels to work from. Crowe embodies Captain Jack Aubrey perfectly – oaken and noble and solid. Teaming him up with Paul Bettany for the second time is a masterstroke, as they bicker and play-off each other like old friends. There is action, emotion, intrigue, drama, and naval tactics. What isn’t to like?

On the tenth day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

The Silence of the Lambs

3 January, ITV 1, 10.45pm

Anthony Hopkins serves us up plenty of leftover Christmas ham with his performance. His Hannibal Lecter is intelligent, sophisticated…and essentially and pantomime villain. His Hannibal is hammy with a capital H! Please don’t misunderstand me, I enjoy the performance and the film, but it isn’t a patch on Brian Cox’s bone-chillingly subtle, understated performance in Manhunter. Anyway, this is a terrifying film in the best way possible. Putting Hopkins aside, the performances are all spot on: Jodie Foster gives us an ingénue who’s vulnerability is both a weakness and her greatest strength, and Ted Levine is indescribably creepy as serial-killer Buffalo Bill. After ten days of Christmas lulling you into a soporific stupor, this flick is the icy wake-up you need!

On the eleventh day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

The Graduate/Rain Man

4 January, BBC 4, 9pm/11.20pm

Early-career Dustin Hoffman or mid-career Dustin Hoffman: take your pick. The is no wrong answer.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my telly gave to me…

Aliens

5 January, ITV 4, 9pm

The rarest of creatures: a sequel which surpasses the original. Sigourney Weaver is iconic, and is the prototype for all future female action heroes. James Cameron takes Ridley Scott’s original claustrophobic horror masterpiece, and morphs it into a war-movie to rival ‘Saving Private Ryan’. It is a superb adrenaline-rush of a film. At the end of twelve days we can all echo Bill Paxton’s immortal words: Game over, man! Game over!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

BONUS GIFT…

Carols from King’s

Christmas Eve, BBC 2, 6pm

One of the finest examples of Anglican liturgy, perfectly combining atmosphere, music, and scripture. I’ve written a little article explaining why the service of Nine Lessons and Carols is a treasure we must not lose.

Read now

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Article

Culture

Fun & play

Holidays/vacations

Mental Health

5 August 2025

5 min read

I disobeyed Disney’s command to 'celebrate happy’

You don’t have to live your best life

Natalie Garrett

Natalie produces and narrates The Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast. She's an Anglican minister and a trained actor.

Disneyland.

I’ve just got back from a wonderful family holiday in California. And, of course, we couldn’t take our teenage daughters to California and not go to Disneyland.

This year marks the seventieth anniversary of Disneyland, the Californian theme park conceived and built by Walt Disney, which opened in 1955. We forget now that this was a revolutionary concept in its time and wonderfully founded on the wholesome notion of creating a place where families could immerse themselves in an imaginative world; where parents and children could play and have fun together. In our screen-obsessed, individualist, loneliness-epidemic age, that continues to be a very good idea.

We spent two days at Disneyland which proved enough time for me to have a chat and selfie with Iron Man; become a Space Ranger firing lasers alongside Buzz Lightyear; go on a turbulent adventure through a dangerous lost temple with Indiana Jones; and even join the Rise of the Resistance to be chased by some mean-looking Storm Troopers. Good times.

However, a point of friction for me, ironically, was the theme for Disneyland's 70th anniversary celebration: "Celebrate Happy". 

I think Disneyland is great. A place designed for families and friends to have fun together absolutely gets my jaunty thumbs up. But I got increasingly annoyed by being told I should be happy all the time. Apart from anything else, the motto was clearly coined by someone who has never experienced the greatest irony of all: Disney Leg.

Disney Leg (grown-up name Cutaneous Vasculitis, also experienced when playing golf) is a form of small blood vessel inflammation resulting swelling, a purplish rash, burning sensation and itching caused by walking or standing for hours at a time in high temperatures. It occurs most commonly in women in their late 40s or early 50s. I was one such woman. And I can tell you for nothing that Disney Leg is no celebrator of happy.

Disney leg may have made me more Eeyore than Tigger, but my Disney experience was also framed by reading Kate Bowler’s wonderful book, Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved. I love Kate Bowler. I want her to be my best friend, forever. I want to be her when I grow up.

I first met her when I listened in to the Seen & Unseen Live that featured her in conversation with Graham Tomlin. She introduces herself saying, “I’m Kate. I’m a Duke professor, podcaster and author with a single mission: giving you a little more permission to admit that you’re not always ‘living your best life’. After years of being told I was incurable, I was declared cancer-free. But there’s no going back. I am forever changed by what I discovered: life is so beautiful and life is so hard.”

For everyone.” Kate is leading her own Rise of Resistance as she resists the tyranny of the wide and pervasive culture of extreme positivity that could also be summed up as “celebrate happy”.

If my life is a failure because I’m not happy all the time, then how do I find the courage and hope that I need when faced with suffering or challenge?

If Kate had been there, she wouldn’t have insisted that I celebrate happy, she would have found some shade and a bucket of iced water for me to immerse my Disney ankles in. She would have listened to me describe my discomfort with compassion and empathy such that I would then also feel able to tell her about how much I was enjoying myself.

You see, I believe that the way towards “happy” isn’t through denial of suffering. It can’t be. We all know that life can be unbearably hard as well as achingly funny. To deny one is to negate the reality of the other. And to make “happy” our life goal is to exclude so much else that is beautiful in its complexity. If my life is a failure because I’m not happy all the time, then how do I find the courage and hope that I need when faced with suffering or challenge? And suffering and challenge are an everyday part of life that we simply cannot choose to ignore. The unpaid bills, the cancer diagnosis, the broken relationship - these things don’t go away or hurt less when I insist that I’m living my best life.

Some of the best times of my life have occurred at exactly the moment when life has been hardest. Because that’s when I’ve had to acknowledge that I’m not in control of everything; that there is something, Someone, bigger and more powerful and more glorious than anything this world can offer me. If I insist on making happiness my god, I might easily miss out on the God who loved me so much he was prepared to suffer and die for me. My best life is found not in “happiness” but in the truth of God’s sacrificial love for me.

I don’t mean to denigrate Disney at all. I think the Disney DNA of fun and a warm welcome give the rest of us much to learn from. Did you know that the people who walk around Disneyland dressed up as the famous Disney characters are highly trained, including the golden rule: when a child hugs you, you don’t let go until they do. Isn’t that beautiful? (I wonder how that would play out if I insisted on that in my church?) But I do want to take the focus off the demand to “celebrate happy” and be free to celebrate the wider experience of life as well.

What I took from my Disney/Kate Bowler sandwich is that the best of life comes from embracing the highs and lows; being honest about and unafraid of mixed feelings.

Life is, as Ronan Keating once said, a rollercoster, just got to ride it. But also, I would add, life is getting fed up in the queue to get on the ride. Life is also feeling too hot or tired and needing to sit down. Life is also looking at your photos afterwards and realising that Tinkerbell has photobombed you. And I believe that all of that is to be celebrated, along with the happy.

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