Christmas specials love them. Who's with me?

Some people hate them, but not me, so what are they, Christmas TV specials. From the minute it hits the shelves I scan the big fat Christmas Radio Times planning my holiday schedule like a military operation.

I can put up with a lot of crap on TV around this time of the year but top of my hate list are the soaps, EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale. Last Christmas Day all three took up a block of 3 hours of precious time in total. What a waste from 5:15pm until 9:30pm with the only break a 15-minute newsbreak if you watched the main two channels, BBC and ITV. I have to watch the soaps it was in my marriage contract with the wife whose life seems to revolve around them.

I hope that one day the TV companies will come around to the fact some would rather see some real family entertainment than the soaps. With the soaps, taking up prime family time there is little time to factor in other programmes that I would call good family entertainment. We need shows like the Generation Game or an all-star pantomime on Christmas Day. Last year the BBC won the Christmas Day ratings, no change there. The top show was Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special with 9.5 million according to figures supplied to the public with top soap going to Coronation Street (ITV) – 7.9 million. The figures are way down on past Christmases mainly because there was less competition from a myriad of channels there are to choose from now.

Mike Yarwood

The most watched Christmas Day programme was Mike Yarwood's 1977 Christmas Show that tops the list of the most-watched Christmas programmes with 28 million. Yarwood marginally beat off Morecambe and Wise the same night also credited with a 28 million audience. The other three in the top five are Only Fools and Horses 1993 (19million), Wallace and Gromit - A Matter of Loaf and Death 2008 (15million) and Vicar of Dibley 2004 (12.52million) and all BBC shows just showing the dominance of the British Broadcasting Company in the Christmas schedule.

The highlight of my upcoming Christmas Day viewing will be Doctor Who, a good film with no commercial breaks and a laugh. It is always good to have a laugh it helps you unwind hopefully this year it won’t be Mrs Brown Boys as I find it totally unfunny.