Your guide to the best of this year's Christmas television

The festive television schedules are full of repeats, Christmas specials, soaps and films that are seen year in, year out. But in amongst all the stuff you could quote in your sleep are some real gems. To save you from missing anything, and searching fruitlessly through the listings - here's a guide to the televisual highlights between Christmas and the new year. All you have to do decide is what to watch. 

Doctor Who 
Christmas Day wouldn't be Christmas Day without an adventure with the Doctor. This episode - The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe - is set in England in the 1940s, where the Doctor links up with a recently widowed woman and her two young children as they are evacuated to Dorset. The Arwell family soon find themselves transported to a Narnia-like snowy land through a big blue parcel. Only the foe they're battling is much more scary than the White Witch...
BBC One, Christmas Day, 7pm 

Downton Abbey 
For fans of period drama Downtown Abbey is back for a two-hour Christmas special. It's 1919 and Lord Grantham is hosting a lavish party. Despite appearances, all is not likely to go smoothly and there's plenty of tension, what with Bates's arrest for the murder of his wife, Mary's rocky relationship with Sir Richard Carlisle and a new suitor with a past for Rosamund.
ITV1, Christmas Day, 9pm

Absolutely Fabulous 
Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley return for two episodes (the first on Christmas Day) as Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone. All the original cast are back for the return of Ab Fab, and it's sure to be exactly the latter.
BBC One, Christmas Day, 10pm

The Borrowers 
I have fond memories of an adaptation of Mary Norton's The Borrowers from the early 1990s, starring Ian Holm (who went on to play another very famous small person). I loved the idea that there were tiny people living under the floorboards, making their furniture and other items from everyday human belongings. No matter how hard I tried, I could never create anything as brilliant out of old toilet rolls, matchboxes and bits of string as the Borrowers did. Starring Stephen Fry, Victoria Wood, Christopher Ecclestone and the fabulous Robert Sheehan as Spiller, this adaptation has the feel and magic of the one I watched as a child.
BBC One, Boxing Day, 7.30pm 

The Royal Bodyguard
Sir David Jason heads back to the BBC in a new comedy role as Captain Guy Hubble, an ex-guardsman who is head of security at Buckingham Palace. After saving the Queen's life in an act of bravery he is appointed as Royal Bodyguard. Hilarious escapades follow.
BBC One, starts Boxing Day, 9.30pm 

Great Expectations 
Granted, it's not the first story that springs to mind when you think about Charles Dickens and Christmas, but Great Expectations is one of those great winter tales, something you can curl up with on the sofa when it's cold outside. For those who don't want to work their way through the novel, this new adaptation has a stellar cast, which includes Ray Winstone, Gillian Anderson and David Suchet, and is suitably haunting.
BBC One, December 27, 28 and 29 at 9pm 

Fast Freddie, the Widow and Me
A proper cheesy Christmas story starring Laurence Fox as a wealthy narrow-minded luxury-car dealer who has to spend the run-up to Christmas helping troubled young adults after being found guilty of drink-driving. He meets recently widowed Laura, and 18-year-old Freddie, who has only months to live. Even though you'll see what's coming miles off, you should keep the tissues handy.
ITV1, December 27, 9pm

Sherlock Holmes
Forget Robert Downey Jr, Benedict Cumberbatch is back as the detective in the first of three episodes. Sherlock and John Watson (Martin Freeman) face a secret conspiracy involving the British government in A Scandal in Belgravia. And THE woman in Sherlock's life is introduced, the ruthless and brilliant Irene Adler.
BBC One, New Year's Day, time TBC

The best of the rest

The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff
Featuring an impressive cast including Robert Webb, Katherine Parkinson, Stephen Fry and David Mitchell, The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff is a great spoof, sure to entertain those who love period dramas, and those who loathe them.
BBC Two, starts December 19, 8.30pm

Michael McIntyre's Christmas Comedy Roadshow
The comedian is joined is joined by a host of famous, funny friends to help you end Christmas Day with a laugh, no matter what dramas have taken place during the day.
BBC One, Christmas Day, 10.30pm

Strictly Come Dancing 
Five celebrities and their professional partners battle it out to be crowned champion.
BBC One, Christmas Day, 8pm 

Christmas Day films
Kung Fu Panda, BBC One, 12.35pm
Monsters vs Aliens, BBC One, 3.10pm
Ratatouille, BBC One, 4.50pm
Aladdin, ITV1, 1.15pm
Happy Feet, ITV1, 3.10pm
Big, Channel 4, 5.20pm
Ice Age 3, Channel 4, 7.15pm

Why the Military Wives Choir deserve to be Christmas Number One

So, you might have heard a song called Cannonball, a cover of Damian Rice's song by Little Mix, the winners of this year's X Factor.

In any other year, it might automatically get to number one. After all, winning the X Factor almost entitles you to having a number one single. 

Almost, because this year there's a viable alternative to the X Factor - the Military Wives Choir.

If you listen to Radio 2 in the mornings you can't have missed the fact that Chris Evans is pushing for this song to get to number one, and I can't help but be behind him.

Working with the very talented Gareth Malone, the choir put together the gorgeous Wherever You Are, a song full of some of the most important emotions we as humans can feel - love, fear, longing.

Three bars of Wherever You Are contain more feeling than three minutes of any song by any X Factor winner ever (however talented they are).

I've met and spent time with many servicemen through the course of my work, and I've met their friends and family who are left behind each time they're sent overseas. They are the bravest people I have ever encountered, regardless of whether their battlefield is a forward operating base or an empty house.

The hardest stories I've ever worked on are tributes to soldiers who have died in the line of duty. There is one in particular I will always remember, a bomb disposal expert, who died doing what he loved and wanted to do - protecting others. Every time I spoke to his family, all they felt was love and pride for him, and their strength at losing him in such difficult circumstances left me speechless.

Whatever you think of the current conflicts Britain is involved in, whatever your stance on war in general, the women who make up the Military Wives Choir face the very real possibility that their partners may get injured, or worse, while just doing their jobs. Usually, the families of servicemen away in conflict areas can do nothing but wait and hope and pray. 

But the Military Wives Choir is a group of women who decided to show the world just how it feels to wait and hope and pray, and in doing so are doing more than those three things. Wherever You Are is not just a song, it's a tribute, and one whose sales are going to raise money for some great charities which help servicemen and their families.

The women in this choir have produced something amazing in difficult circumstances. The hard work is being done by them and their partners - all the public has to do it is buy the track, and help get the song that really means something to number one on Christmas Day.

*Wherever You Are is released tomorrow.

Review: Glee: The Music - The Christmas Album Volume 2

Christmas is about many different things to many different people, but one of the things everyone should feel at some point over the festive period is joy. The Christmas period should be full of fun, happiness, warm hugs, twinkling eyes and the comfort of family and friends around you. And a good Christmas tune should conjure up all those feelings and images.

It's a pity then that Glee: The Music - The Christmas Album Volume 2 is more like a piece of dry turkey and a squashed mince pie than it is eggnog and golden roast potatoes.

Out of 12 tracks, there is clearly one stand out - Darren Criss and Chris Colfer's duet on Let It Snow. The pair sang the best song during last year's Glee Christmas episode - Baby, It's Cold Outside. That was flirty and fun, and Let It Snow has the same vibe. It's got great rhythm, the pair's voices sound wonderful together and it's a smile-along, singalong tune.

Compared to Let It Snow, the rest of the album is at best slightly above average, and at worst mechanical.

It's the ballads that tend to work better than the upbeat tunes. Lea Michele's rendition of Joni Mitchell's gorgeous River and Kevin McHale's version of Little Drummer Boy (one of my favourite festive numbers) are pretty good after a couple of listens, as is Damian McGinty's take on the sad Blue Christmas.

The rest, though? Well, they wouldn't be on any compilation of Christmas songs I would put together, unless the aim was to bore people.

While Amber Riley has an amazing voice, her version of All I Want for Christmas is You is all about hitting the perfect notes without feeling any of the song. While Naya Rivera's version of Santa Baby is fun, it's a little predictable, and Heather Morris doing Christmas Wrapping gives you the feeling she's just going through the motions.

There are some original compositions on the album as well, which filled me with dread before I even heard them. Glee has tried original numbers before (the most famous and successful being Loser Like Me) but they've never been as brilliant as the covers they've done.

Christmas Eve With You, an original song with Matthew Morrison and Jayma Mays on vocals, is sleep inducing. The other original, Extraordinary Merry Christmas sung by Criss and Michele, features every Christmas cliche you can think of in its lyrics and is annoyingly catchy, emphasis on the annoying part.

Strangely, the album chooses to feature Lindsey Pearce and Alex Newell, runners-up on The Glee Project, and Samuel Larsen, who won the show with Damian McGinty. It's strange because it's an odd time to bring in new vocals (although Pearce has sung on the show once, the others have not yet done so) - Christmas is a time for indulging in the familiar and comforting. Pearce and Newell sing a decent version of Do You Hear What I Hear, while Larsen joins Cory Monteith and Mark Salling on a rocky version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. It would be innovative, if only every other song involving a group of the Glee guys wasn't a rocky version of whatever they've chosen.

Strangest of all, in my opinion, is the decision to cover Do They Know It's Christmas, originally released by Band Aid. It's a song with a powerful history, and a song which showed the power of music to help, which is something Glee is all about, seeing as many of the characters find refuge in music. However, covering Do They Know It's Christmas on an album for a television show demeans the history of the song a little bit, especially considering this version is missing the anger, frustration and determination that the vocalists on the original conveyed.

Glee's second attempt at a Christmas album is okay, but okay isn't what you want for Christmas. You want dancing around the room, avoiding/lingering under* the mistletoe, and smiles on everyone's faces. My advice - download Let It Snow (plus Blue Christmas, Little Drummer Boy and River if you want some ballads), and use them among the festive tunes of your choice on your own Christmas compilation.

*delete as appropriate