My childhood recollection of Christmas is you couldn't turn on the telly without coming across some sort of seasonally appropriate show. Often explicitly about the Yuletide period, they were suitable for viewers of all ages if screened before the watershed and almost always promoted various virtues associated with the holiday.
These days, finding such festive fare is more of a chore. Partly that's because there were only a couple of channels when I was a kid, and now any apt programming is thinly spread over a plethora of platforms.
Despite not being remotely religious, I'm a little sad about how few shows in this week's schedule seem intended to engender warm fuzzies for one's fellow humans. So, here's a rough guide to some shows that should hit that spot, and several that definitely don't.
The Middle, Monday, 7.30pm, TV2: One of the few Christmas episodes from a current series to screen this week, the Hecks' humorously Herculean efforts to earn enough to be able to afford to celebrate Christmas will make you either thankful for what you've got or break into a cold sweat about your mounting credit card bill.
