Downton Abbey
If you want to get traditional this Christmas, go beyond the Coca Cola image of Santa to the days when, as we were informed on Twitter, Santa was known to wear a hood instead of a friendly hat. Give yourself the gift of history this
holiday season with Downton Abbey, the upstairs-downstairs drama where you won't get a sniff of an iPad or a Playstation under the Christmas tree. Back in 1919, gift-giving was all lovely leather bound dusty books (probably not dusty at the time), and lovely one way tickets to New York on the Titanic. With three Christmas specials under their belt (summarised elegantly here), and the current season about to culminate in a Clooney-cameoing Chrimbo spectacular, this is the perfect time to binge season after season of Downton. / AC
Where: Lightbox
Home Alone
When I was about six, I decided that Macauley Culkin was going to be my husband. I'm a little older and wiser now, but that doesn't stop this movie being a non stop tour de force Christmas classic. Fun fact: Joe Pesci (one of the burglars) actually acted shady around Culkin and avoided him in real life so that he would be scared of him on set. He even genuinely bit his fingers when practicing that infamous scene. What I'm saying here is the "method" has gone too far. /AC
Where: TV3 on Wednesday at 7.00pm
Love Actually
Everyone has a got a bloody opinion on Love Actually, but I will hold a placard outside your front door in the snow until we can all agree that it is an instant Christmas classic. I bet people who hate it don't even cry at airports or anything. Monsters. /AC
Where: TV3 on Wednesday at 9.05pm
Jack Frost
Forget Olaf from Frozen, forget Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr Freeze, forget any famous ice-based characters that happened before or after this. Michael Keaton as a Dad turned Snowman in Jack Frost is the only Christmas movie that is equal parts terrifying and heartwarming. /AC
Where: TV2 on Thursday at 11.05am
The Bucket List
If there's one thing I like at Christmas, it's watching two of the world's most beloved actors die of old age before my very eyes. / AC
Where: TV1 on Thursday at 8.30pm
Now and Then
One of my all time favourite movies, at Christmas and just in general. A group of close knit friends reunite as adults and reminisce about their childhoods. It's a nostalgia-heavy family friendly about coming of age, friendship, and a young Brendan Fraser wearing an earring. / AC
Where: TV2 on Friday at 12.30pm
The Nativity Story
This doesn't really count as New Zealand television, but unless you want to watch a documentary about New Zealand's relationship with the song "Ten Guitars" (Heartland at 2.20pm on Thurs), then this is about as festive and as tenuous as it gets. Starring our own Whale Riding princess Keisha Castle Hughes, The Nativity Story follows the classic yarn of Mary getting preggo with baby Jesus. The interesting scoop, however, is that Keisha herself got pregnant during the filming. Coincidence? Or something more sinister/miraculous? A fun family game could be to watch the baby bump and guess if it's real or fake. I don't know, it's just an idea. / AC
Where: TV1 on Thursday at 2pm
Black Mirror Christmas Special
Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror is one of the most provocative and unnerving shows in recent memory, a sci fi anthology which blows up current trends into near-future dystopian nightmares which have about a 65% chance of coming true. The first episode, for example, features a terrorist plot to have the British PM f*** a pig on television. It stands to reason, then, that Brooker's vision of christmas will be bleak enough to make Bad Santa look like Home Alone. But you know what? At 8.30pm on christmas day, sometimes you've had enough good cheer and just want to feel depressed about the future of humanity. This episode has the added bonus of starring Mad Men's Jon Hamm as a tech entrepreneur, a modern day analog to Draper's ad exec if ever there was one. / DG
Where: 8.30pm Christmas Day on SoHo
Call the Midwife Christmas Special
Call The Midwife, adapted from a memoir about midwifery in '50s London, has quietly become the BBC's biggest drama hit in over a decade. It's done this by putting the domestic experience of women front and centre, rather than somewhere on the periphery as has been the case with much recent period drama. The relatively more primitive medical realities of the era give each birth a dramatic edge, but most of the show's pleasures come from terrific script, staging and performances, with the Christmas special highlighted by the on-screen appearance of Vanessa Redgrave for the first time. If you're a fan of the venerable UK christmas special tradition and Black Mirror has spooked you to your core, consider Call the Midwife a palate cleanser - a reminder that for all the looming singularity, life's simple pleasures, like childbirth, remain constant. / DG
Where: 8.40pm Boxing Day on One
The Great Christmas Light Fight
Christmas-ness is a spectrum. At one end are the full-blown grinches who start excitedly prepping tweets complaining about Christmas music in October. At the other are the maniacs of The Great Christmas Light Fight, who spend the whole year working on ever more elaborate lighting and action displays for their houses. ABC decided to enable the hell out of this obsession by pitting families across America against one another to win a cash prize of $50,000 for the gnarliest lighting display. That should cover about half the winner's electricity bill, then, and provide head-shaking entertainment for the rest of us.
Where: 4pm Christmas Eve on The Living Channel
The NBA Christmas Day Slate
Christmas day in New Zealand is a nightmarish games-free wasteland. It's like our sporting authorities are mandating that we spend time meaningfully engaging with our families for one lousy day a year, and that their athletes do the same. That might sound OK to you, but the sports fan in me thinks it's a rubbish deal, and that Christmas day, which nearly the whole country has off, would be the perfect time to play an annual game of T20 or star-packed rugby sevens - anything really, to ward off the terror that is a full day with our weird ol' families. Thankfully, as with most things, America is more ruthless when it comes to working hours. The NBA schedules marquee matchups all day long (playing on our Boxing Day due to the time difference). Steven Adams and his Oklahoma City Thunder start the day off against the reigning champion San Antonio Spurs - the perfect thing to watch, groggy but happy, first thing Boxing Day.
Where: ESPN from 8.30am Boxing Day
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