HAVING given in to urgent pleas from friends and family to watch The Crown, we gained extra parent points this week by FINALLY (imagine uttered with accompanying eyeroll from exasperated 12-year-old) signing up to Netflix.
Christmas telly, which for our streaming-service-and-satellite-free service household has generally meant Doctor Who, the Strictly festive special and the best Christmas movie ever, Arthur Christmas (feel free to disagree, but you are wrong), plus a handful of classic musicals, now contains endless possibilities.
It’s going to be a quieter Christmas than normal, of course, so there’s much more time for television.
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We never watch anything on Christmas Day itself – too busy cooking, eating, playing games, eating – but this is the one holiday from work and school which was absolutely invented for lying about doing nothing once the big day itself is over.
This year especially, with no friends to meet up with at local restaurants, no pantos to attend and no visitors turning up unexpectedly, will indeed include lots of doing nothing. It’s almost the law, in fact.
The boys are already drawing up a viewing schedule.
“Doctor Who, Strictly, Arthur Christmas,” says the 12-year-old. So far, so typical.
“Miracle on 34th Street, the new one; Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; On the Town,” adds his brother.
But these are staples, I point out. We watch them every year, I plead. And now we have NETFLIX.
“We like watching what we watch,” they shrug
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They are creatures of habit, our boys, who despite a healthy sense of adventure, still find comfort in the familiar. They hold dear our daft family traditions, the things we do at certain times and the people we see in particular places, silly rituals and annual shenanigans that have lasted since childhood. I know this is an inherited trait, my fault. But after the last 10 months, especially, who can blame us?
Out of the blue, the 17-year-old perks up. “Oh I know,” he says. “there is something new I want to try.”
The Christmas Chronicles, I suggest, hopefully. The Queen’s Gambit? Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square? Any number of glorious new binge-worthy box sets?
“It’s a Wonderful Life,” he says, adding as he sees the look on my face. “Well, I’ve never seen it. And it IS Christmassy.”
And of course, it’s not on Netflix.
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