Christmas has more and more become a time for favourite TV repeats and movies and less and less a time for quality original programming.
I get my own copy of the Radio Times (courtesy of Husband). I comb through looking for movies I haven't seen or interesting looking dramas, or comedy specials. Generally I end up with a collection of "Top 100..." (or whatever number) populated with clips and talking heads. If things fall right it will inform me for one of our TV traditions "The Big Fat Quiz of the Year".
We have a heap of Christmas movies that get fitted in; Bill Murray in 'Scrooged' and James Stewart (just had to check with Husband to make sure I wasn't confusing him with James Cagney or Gregory Peck!) in "It's a Wonderful Life". I don't mind throwing in any of a whole batch of other non-Christmas related musicals either.
When I was growing up you could rely on the whole range of BBC comedy shows having Christmas specials... and of course the now infamous "Morecambe and Wise" which still, thirty years later, gets trotted out for repeats.
To this day I will never forget my father falling about laughing at Morecambe and Wise with Andre Previn (shown in 1971 so already on repeats)...
Nothing tickled my father more than Eric Morecambe's statement delivered with such conviction "I'm playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order"
We've seen some passable Christmas movies over the last decade or so, but none that (so far) want to join the line up of Christmas tradition.