Best merry christmas wish

A heartwarming Call The Midwife... sparkling new versions of A Christmas Carol and Dracula... enchanting animations The Snail And The Whale and The Tiger Who Came To Tea... Yes, this promises to be a vintage year for Christmas TV.  And here, we’re highlighting the very best 100 shows to make sure you don’t miss a thing. So sit back, switch on and let us guide you through this wonderful time of year... DRAMA AND THRILLERS  Perennial favourites Call The Midwife and Doctor Who are back, along with a fresh look at the Profumo scandal and a reboot of classic vampire tale Dracula from the team behind Sherlock. 1. Dracula 1-3 January, 9pm, BBC1 In their spine-chilling new version of the vampire classic, Mark Gatiss says he and Steven Moffat – the pair behind Sherlock – ‘wanted to make Dracula the hero of his own story for the first time’. Pictured, Claes Bang as Dracula in the new BBC1 adaptation In their spine-chilling new … [Read more...] about Our top 100 Christmas TV countdown! From spine-chilling ghost stories to big belly laughs, we’ve picked out the very best shows to make sure you don’t miss a thing

Well, we’ve made it to Christmas. That’s the good news. The bad news is you’ve got to get through it. Because, although the adverts make Christmas look like a jolly time, where smiling children open their presents with the appropriate level of appreciation, devoted husbands help with the washing up and nobody cries, this is Christmas 2019 and there are plenty of very controversial pitfalls, unique to this particular moment in history. From how to manage when your brother-in-law is banging on about Brexit and your teenager has come over all Extinction Rebellion, to why mistletoe is now the enemy and why vegan pigs-in-blankets exist, here are a few tips to having a very merry, very 2019 Christmas…... … [Read more...] about How to have a frightfully 2019 Christmas, from feeding woke relations to wrangling posh friends

This Christmas you’ll find me sitting around a crackling fire with my family: my mum whomping down her third mince pie, my sister searching for bubbly, and my stepfather burying his nose in the sports pages. One of my ex-boyfriends will be making us die with laughter while another ex polishes off the cava, and a completely different ex tries to pull focus from the first ex, who is on all fours pretending to give birth to a penguin. My actual boyfriend will either be in hysterics or dreading his turn at charades. Christmas is complicated. People start moaning about how stressful Christmas is around the time Pret release their new festive sandwich. Single gay friends, especially, worry about travelling to towns they left as soon as they could, populated by people they hid from on Facebook and hoped never to see again. I know this feeling, because for years it’s what I did, too. Back in the early noughties, the thought of going home to Jersey was so gloomy that I was forced to … [Read more...] about ‘It gets competitive at jigsaw time’: Christmas with my ex-boyfriends

A delivery firm has ditched the traditional Christmas advert to raise vital cash and highlight the incomparable work of midwives up and down the country. In an emotive film, called 'For the Midwife', real-life maternity nurse Katy talks about her job and the sacrifices she and others make to deliver the most precious gift - a newborn child. Deliveroo worked directly with Katy, 26, to uncover the stresses, joys and emotions that are all part of the service of delivering babies. Katy, from University College London Hospital (UCLH), said; "It takes a lot of training and a lot of hard work to become a midwife. It's a calling, a way of life rather than just a job. "It's been incredible to see just how much this glimpse into the day-to-day life of a midwife has resonated with the British public, it's a special time to be part of. "What's better than helping a new family on Christmas Day." Deliveroo will make a donation to UCLH Midwives for every delivery made throughout December, as a … [Read more...] about Deliveroo uses Christmas ad to highlight incredible work of midwives

The Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel Recommended by Anne Fine, author of Madame Doubtfire, Goggle Eyes and Flour Babies The Frog and Toad books are perfect gifts. Children of three to five adore these wry, intelligent and gentle stories about two very different friends. Frog is patient and modest. Toad is not. But together they face the problems any child will recognise: ice‑creams that melt too fast, an overpowering inability to get out of bed, lost buttons, failure of will power, and all the myriad misunderstandings, anxieties and triumphs of small busy lives. The illustrations are a restful, greeny-brown delight. There’s nothing brash and cartoony about these stories. Though written as simply as fables, the wry humour makes them appeal to a wide age range. No adult I know ever tires of reading them aloud. I’ve seen grown men reduced to tears of laughter by Frog and Toad’s confusions. Crongton Knights by Alex Wheatle Recommended by Nick Shaw, English … [Read more...] about Authors and teachers pick a children’s book for Christmas