Christmas EveSanta’s HolidayWednesday, RTÉ One, 5.15pm
There’s always one in the office: that employee who just can’t switch off, but keeps on working long after all their colleagues have logged off and gone to the pub. There’s one in Santa’s workshop too, as we learn in this heartwarming animated feature with a seasonal message for workaholics everywhere. It’s Christmas Day in the North Pole, and Santa’s delivered all the presents to the good boys and girls around the world. The elves have been working hard all year making toys, but now it’s time for everyone to down tools and take a well-deserved break.
With two weeks of fun and festivities planned in Santa’s Village, everyone is looking forward to winding down – all except one elf named Arthur. He can’t relax unless he’s got something to do, so he’s still toiling away in the workshop. A dutiful elf named Maeve – along with her faithful dog Rocket – takes on the task of persuading Arthur to stop working and join in the fun, but keeping Arthur off the treadmill is proving to be a full-time job. Who’s working harder this holiday – Arthur or Maeve?
Christmas in Kilmainham presented by Marty WhelanWednesday, RTÉ One, 6.20pm
Marty Whelan and Imelda May
There’s no Christmas party like a Marty Christmas party, and tonight the festive fun is taking place in the regal surroundings of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, hosted by Mr Whelan himself and featuring the RTÉ Concert Orchestra conducted by Karen Ní Bhroin.
Marty is joined by special guests including the amazing Imelda May, along with The High Kings, the Dublin Gay Men’s Chorus and the Diva Voces women’s choir. Also adding their voices to the Christmas Eve celebrations are a visiting Palestinian choir, Scottish-Irish country-pop singer Lisa McHugh and musician/comedian/TikToker Garron Noone.
High Road Low Road Winter SpecialWednesday, RTÉ One, 8pm
Comedian Kayleigh Trappe and chef Kevin Dundon will feature in the High Road Low Road Winter Special. Photograph: RTÉ
Comedian Kayleigh Trappe and chef Kevin Dundon hit it off big-time on the set of Dancing with the Stars earlier this year, becoming best pals as the show progressed. Trappe called him her “second dad” and rushed to his defence when some viewers complained because he wasn’t booted off the show. Now Kevin and Keyleigh are teaming up again, and this time they’re hitting the slopes with a trip to the spa and ski resort of Gastein in Austria, in this High Road Low Road special for the season that’s in it.
They’ll be arriving to a wonderfully festive atmosphere, but there’s of course a catch: one of them will be spending their time in the lap of luxury, with no expense spared, while the other will have go off-piste and make the best of it on a tight budget. Will everything go smoothly or will it all go downhill fast?
Two Doors Down Christmas SpecialWednesday, BBC One, 10pm
The good folk of Latimer Crescent are back for another Christmas special, but the cast of the Scottish sitcom didn’t think it would happen following the death of writer Simon Carlyle. But here they are again, and getting ready for Christmas in their own inimitably quirky and chaotic way. It all kicks off when Beth and Eric (Arabella Weir and Alex Norton) inadvertently kick-start the season by putting their Christmas tree up too early. Soon the entire crescent is answering the accidental yuletide call.
“We were just clearing out the loft – not declaring that it was officially Christmas,” says Beth. Meanwhile Cathy and Colin (Doon MacKichan and Jonathan Watson) are determined to give each other the perfect present, and Ian and Gordon are determined to have a quiet Christmas. Good luck with all that.
A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Room in the TowerWednesday, BBC Two, 10pm
Joanna Lumley and Tobias Menzies in A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Room in the Tower. Photograph: BBC/Adorable Media/Joe Duggan
Roger Winstanley has been haunted by a recurring dream for most of his life. In the dream he arrives at a mysterious house where something unnameable lurks in a room in the tower. But is it just a dream? When he is invited to stay at a country house, he is shocked to find it looks very like the one in his nightmares. And when he’s told he’ll be staying in the room in the tower, well, he knows that his nightmare has just become reality. Mark Gatiss brings his eighth terrifying tale for Christmas, set during the second World War, and adapted from the short story by EF Benson. Tobias Menzies is the tormented Roger, with Joanna Lumley as the formidable matriarch Mrs Stone.
Christmas DayThe Scarecrows’ Wedding Thursday, BBC One, 3.10pm
The Scarecrows’ Wedding. Photograph: BBC/Magic Light Pictures
It just wouldn’t be Christmas without a charming adaptation of one of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s acclaimed children’s books. The BBC has already screened seasonal animated specials based on The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo’s Child, Room on the Broom, Stick Man, The Snail and the Whale, The Highway Rat and more, all made by animators Magic Light. Now you’re all invited to the wedding of the year, as lovestruck scarecrows Betty O’Barley and Harry O’Hay are planning to tie the knot in style.
All the farmyard animals are helping with the wedding preparations, and Harry just has to leave the farm for one last item before the big day. But when he fails to return, scarecrow lothario Reginald Rake muscles in and tries to sweep Harry’s bride-to-be off her wooden feet. Domhnall Gleeson and Jessie Buckley voice Harry and Betty, with Rob Brydon voicing Reginald and Sophie Okonedo narrating.
The Great Christmas Bake Off 2025 Thursday, Channel 4, 8pm
It’s been 10 years since the great Peep Show graced our screens, and what better way to celebrate the show’s legacy by baking Peep Show-themed cakes marking the funniest moments from the cringe-comedy classic? Even better, Bake Off has assembled original cast members of Peep Show in a competition that’s bound have us spitting cake crumbs with laughter. Olivia Colman, David Mitchell, Isy Suttie, Matt King and Sophie Winkleman will all be entering the Bake Off tent for this festive special, overseen by judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith, with presenters Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond trying to keep everything from getting out of hand.
They Peep Show peeps will have to craft biccie deccies to hang on the tree, then bake a traditional turkey pie for Boxing Day, before choosing their favourite bits from Peep Show to render in cake form. I have just one question: will we hear their internal dialogue as they battle for the Festive Star Baker title?
Call the Midwife Christmas Special Thursday, BBC One, 8.15pm & Friday, BBC One, 8.30pm
If any seasonal programme is made for getting out the Quality Street, then it has to be the Call the Midwife Christmas special. This year, you’re going to need two tins of Quality Street, because there’s a double helping of festive drama in store from the nuns of Nonnatus House, with the second special airing on St Stephen’s Day (what they call Boxing Day over in Blighty). The producers are promising that this year’s specials will be very different from the series, and will take the nuns to “completely new territory”, as they embark on a rescue mission to the far east. Violet and Fred have travelled out to Hong Kong to visit Violet’s son, where they come upon a terrible disaster: the collapse of the Branch House in Kowloon.
There are many casualties and fatalities, so the nuns assemble an emergency team to fly out to HK and help with the rescue operation. And it wouldn’t be Christmas without one of the nuns finding an apparently abandoned newborn baby in a cardboard box. There’s also a storyline involving Sister Catherine and two expectant mothers who are Irish Travellers.
Mrs Brown’s Boys 2025 SpecialThursday, RTÉ One, 9.05pm/BBC One, 10.15pm
Christmas is a time to indulge your taste buds with lots of tempting treats, but eventually you’ll have to eat those Brussels sprouts or risk offending mammy. And you’re also going to have to sit through another Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas special, much as it might offend your sophisticated sense of humour. Brendan O’Carroll returns as bawdy mammy Agnes Brown, with Jennifer Gibney as Cathy, Paddy Houlihan as Dermot, Danny O’Carroll as Buster and Eilish O’Carroll as Winnie.
So what will be happening in the mythical, magical town of Finglas this year? In the first of two specials, titled Mammy’s Bottles, Agnes gathers her nearest and dearest together for a Christmas photograph, and gets a glimpse of the real meaning of Christmas, while Buster brings home another whizz-bang Christmas tree that does a lot more than it says on the tinsel, and Cathy gets in a tizzy about getting the right presents for everyone. Agnes will be back on New Year’s Day for a second seasonal special, this one entitled Stormin’ Mammy.
Amandaland Christmas Special Thursday, BBC One, 9.15pm
Amandaland featuring Joanna Lumley, Jennifer Saunders, Phillippa Dunne, Samuel Anderson and more. Photograph: BBC/Merman
Lucy Punch returns as divorced mum Amanda Hughes in this festive comedy special, but are we in Amandaland or Ab Fab land? Joanna Lumley returns as Amanda’s mum Felicity, but Jennifer Saunders also joins the cast as Amanda’s aunt Joan, the estranged sister of Felicity.
Joan and Felicity could not be more different from Edina and Patsy, but this promises to be mad fun altogether. Amanda and her teenage kids, Georgie and Manus, are planning to spend Christmas at Aunt Joan’s country house, and Amanda is looking forward to reliving the magic of her childhood Christmases in this shabby but charming old house. But somehow Mal (Samuel Anderson) and Anne (Philippa Dunne) have managed to get themselves invited along, so it’s just not going to be the same. As everyone settles in for the festivities, Anne gets depressed because she’s not with her own family, and Felicity starts to find Joan’s relentless Christmas cheer a bit grating.
St Stephen’s DayKeys to My Life Christmas specialFriday, RTÉ One, 6.30pm
Brendan Courtney presents a special hour-long episode of KTML, and this promises to be one magical journey from Dublin’s inner city to New York’s Hell’s Kitchen and, ultimately, Hollywood in the company of Oscar-winning film director Jim Sheridan. Accompanied by Courtney, Sheridan recalls his childhood growing up in a boarding house near Sheriff Street in Dublin, and revisits the three-bedroomed Victorian house in Ballybough which was his first married home. These period houses are much-sought after these days, but back in the 1970s, no one wanted to live in them.
Then Sheridan goes back to the tenement rooms in New York where he lived with his young family in the early 1980s, broke and dreaming of a career in filmmaking. His time in New York was the inspiration for his 2002 film In America. Sheridan also brings Courtney to the architectural marvel he built in affluent Dalkey, overlooking the sea, which he sold in 2016 for more than €2.3 million.
Westlife 25 at the Royal Albert HallFriday, RTÉ One, 7.30pm
Westlife 25. Photograph: RTÉ
It seems like only yesterday Westlife were playing their farewell concert at Croke Park, and now here they are celebrating 25 years of mega pop success with a special show, filmed earlier this year at London’s Royal Albert Hall. I was at one of those farewell gigs back in 2012: they sang their hits, they sat on stools, and they even danced a bit for Uptown Girl, but there was no denying their prodigious talent or the love between them and their fans, and no doubt they would be back, as big as ever.
Now down to a trio of Shane Filan, Kian Egan and Nicky Byrne (Mark Feehily is, alas, unable to take part due to health reasons), the Westlifers played two concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, and this film is an early Christmas present for fans who are waiting patiently for the band’s 25th Anniversary World Tour in autumn 2026.
The Festive Pottery Throw Down 2025Friday, Channel 4, 7.45pm
Ever since she presented The Traitors Ireland, Siobhán McSweeney has been the true High Queen of Ireland, and the nation is patiently awaiting her return to Slane Castle for a second series in 2026. In the meantime, we can join McSweeney as she hosts a festive edition of the Great Pottery Throw Down. Four celebrities – TV personality Amber Gill, actor Sarah Hadland, broadcaster Colin Murray and comedian Tim Vine – will take part in a series of crafty challenges, under the watchful eye of judges Keith Brymer Jones and Rich Miller.
Who will sleigh with the clay, and whose creations will droop into goop? The celebs will face a Christmassy task that would make even the elves in Santa’s workshop baulk: creating their own North Pole scene. That’s followed by a reindeer water bowl throwing race that’s bound to get very messy indeed.
George Best i gCorcaighFriday, TG4, 8.15pm
Fifty years ago, Cork Celtic were lagging behind in the League of Ireland and losing money fast as attendances fell away. They needed to take drastic action and give the flagging club a shot in the arm. The solution: draft in the world’s greatest footballer, George Best, to pump some life back into the team. Sounds like an impossible mission, but somehow the club managed to pull off this footballing coup, and to the delight of the Cork Celtic fans, Bestie togged out with the team that very year.
The Northern Ireland star had left Manchester United after 11 years due to his wild, hard-drinking lifestyle, and had become a striker for hire, playing with whoever would stump up the fee. This fascinating and entertaining documentary tells the story of Bestie’s stint with Cork Celtic, as he lined out with the team against the likes of Bohemians, Shelbourne and Drogheda United, reigniting the club’s fortunes for an all-too-brief period.
The documentary, shot on location in Cork and produced by Dearg Films, features rare archive footage of Best in action for Cork Celtic, and interviews with many of his former Cork Celtic team-mates, including Alfie McCarthy, Bryan McSweeney and John “Blondie” Carroll, plus broadcasters John Creedon, Ger Canning and Trevor Welch, and GAA legend and former Cork Celtic player Jimmy Barry Murphy.