Need something to watch? Here’s your armchair survival guide to Christmas TV

2 hours ago 1

As the seasonal classic goes, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. But it’s also the hardest time of the year to find something worth watching on TV. Christmas “classics” may once have been their own genre; now they’re scattered like a sleigh full of unmarked boxes on a distant snowfield.

Are you a Grinch or gift-giver? One Carols by Candlelight telecast can make all the difference. Once lunchtime on Christmas Eve kicks in, if you are planning to spend the rest of this week on the sofa, remote control in hand, this is the definitive what’s-in-the-schedule and what’s-worth-watching of this year’s Christmas assortment.

CHRISTMAS EVE
Wham!: Last Christmas Unwrapped (Arena, 3.10pm, repeated Christmas Day 9.30pm)
A documentary, featuring new interviews with Andrew Ridgeley and archival footage of George Michael, exploring one of the most significant additions to the Christmas music canon in decades: Wham’s Last Christmas.

Jamie’s Christmas Cookbook (LifeStyle Food, 5.35pm)
Frankly, if you’re looking for recipes, you’ve left it too late. But this is a charming Christmas cooking special from Jamie Oliver, who takes you through his family’s Christmas table classics.

An Easter egg at Christmas? Sometimes it’s all too much, even for Santa.

Carols by Candlelight (Nine, 8pm)
A timeless classic, telecast from Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl.

The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland (ABC, 8.29pm)
Is this a modern-day Christmas animated classic in the making? Gerard Butler voices St. Nick and Emilia Clarke voices the Queen of Hearts in a charming mashup of Santa Claus and Alice in Wonderland.

A (Very) Musical Christmas 2025 (ABC, 9.49pm)
A kind of polished, studio-based carols concert, hosted by Zan Rowe, and featuring the stars of Australian musical theatre, including Casey Donovan, Rob Mills and Caroline O’Connor. Filmed at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne.

CHRISTMAS DAY
The Pope’s Christmas Mass (ABC, 9.30am)
Pope Leo XIV delivers his first Papal Christmas Eve Midnight Mass from St Peter’s Basilica.

The Addams Family (Nine, 9.30am)
A kind of dark twist on A Christmas Carol, this episode of The Addams Family – Christmas with the Addams Family - was first broadcast December 24, 1965, and sees Uncle Fester trying to restore Pugsley and Wednesday’s faith in Santa Claus.

Zan Rowe hosts A Very (Musical) Christmas.

Bewitched (Nine, 10am)
One of many Christmas-themed episodes of this beloved sitcom, Humbug Is Not To Be Spoken Here, first aired on December 21, 1967, sees Samantha take a miserly client of Darrin’s to the North Pole on Christmas Eve to meet Santa Claus.

Royal Carols: Together at Christmas (ABC, 5.30pm)
The “Together at Christmas” carol service from Westminster Abbey, featuring the Princess of Wales.

The best Christmas movie ever? Be grateful we didn’t put Die Hard on the list.

The King’s Christmas Message (Ten, 6pm; ABC, 7.30pm; Nine, 11.32pm)
His Majesty King Charles III delivers the annual Christmas Message.

Love Actually (Seven, 7.30pm)
The most beloved modern Christmas film? Some people think so. An epic cast – Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy and Alan Rickman – swept up in a complex tale of falling in, and out, of love.

The Royal Variety Performance 2025 (ABC, 7:42pm)
Recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in London, in the presence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, this features performances by Jessie J, the cast of Les Misérables, Westlife, Katherine Jenkins and Stephen Fry.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (Nine, 7.31pm)
One of the staples of the Christmas TV schedule, Clark Griswold yearns for a quiet family Christmas but has to contend with the unplanned arrival of his relatives.

BOXING DAY
Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2025 (Nine, 12.30pm)
The 80th annual Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, starting at Nielsen Park, with a fleet exceeding 100 yachts.

The Ashes AUS v ENG: Test 4, Day 1 (Seven, 10.30am)
The 4th Ashes Test between Australia and England from the MCG.

STREAMING
A Charlie Brown Christmas (Apple TV, 1965)
Peanuts’ perennial angst-ridden kid Charlie Brown finds himself grappling with the crass commercialism of the holiday season. Won’t someone explain to him the meaning of Christmas? (Spoiler: Linus does.)

The Muppet Christmas Carol (Disney+, 1992)
Michael Caine plays Ebenezer Scrooge with a cast of Muppets, as they re-tell the iconic Christmas story of a miserly old man whose encounter with three ghosts on Christmas Eve transforms him.

It’s A Wonderful Life (Stan, 1946)
Grappling with depression. George Bailey’s guardian angel Clarence reveals to him how the lives surrounding him would have turned out without him. One of the great Christmas classics, presented here in remastered 4K Ultra HD.

Bump: A Christmas Film (Stan, 2025)
Set between episodes nine and 10 of the final season of the TV series Bump, the extended family head off on a Christmas cruise, but instead of a happy holiday, the family reunion devolves into a series of hectic events.

Disney’s Hulu’s Family Guy’s Hallmark Channel’s Lifetime’s Familiar Holiday Movie (Disney+, 2025)
The relatively new Hallmark Christmas movie genre is given a perfect skewering in this wild satire, in which Lois plays a Big Pie corporate spy who comes to a small town hoping to steal an award-winning family pie recipe.

Home Alone (Disney+, 1990)
Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) is left behind when his frankly stupid family leave him behind on a Christmas holiday, forcing him to transform the house into a fortress when two burglars decide to break in.

My Secret Santa (Netflix, 2025)
Is this Mrs Doubtfire, Christmas-style? Or a Netflix twist on a Hallmark idea? A single mum needs a gig, and turns herself into a ski resort Santa Claus. Chuck in the hotel’s wealthy heir, and you have all the Christmas schmaltz you can handle.

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