John Logie Baird didn't know what he was letting the world in for when he invented television.

And it's certain that, when the first flickering images took shape on his screen in 1926, he had little idea that he was signing the death warrant for Christmas as it had been known for centuries.

During the coming Christmas period (which these days lasts a fortnight) there are 1,000 films on television. So a period of 14 days contains enough movies to occupy the screen for 73 days, and fill enough four-hour video tape cassettes to tower 12 feet above the roof if stacked up (without sleeves) beside the average house.

And that's just the films.

All this has happened within a lifetime - the pre-war TV audience could be numbered in thousands. It took the Coronation of 1953 to spark the revolution.

So what was on offer during that first post-revolution Christmas? Well, the Queen wasn't, for a start. She was on the wireless (as the radio was called) on Christmas Day, 1953, like her father and grandfather had been before her.

Telly addicts would have a hard time if transported back. There was one channel - BBC - and a total of just over seven hours of programmes during the day.

It went like this:

11am-12noon - Christmas Day Service (followed by a break until...)

3.15 - Christmas Journey

4.15 - Watch with Mother

5 - Walt Disney's Christmas Show

5.55 - Break (sometimes referred to as the Toddler's Truce, a period in which to feed, water and scrub young children before getting them off to bed)

7.25 - Weather

7.30 - Christmas Party

9.15 - Newsreel (with moving pictures)

9.30 - Interlude (Remember the potter's wheel? The kitten with the ball of wool?)

9.40 Dear Octopus (the play)

And that, dear viewer, was that.

Five years later and 40 years ago, it was a lot more ambitious. The Toddler's Truce had gone out of the window, for a start, because Auntie Beeb now had competition from a brash youngster, ITV.

But in 1958, programmes still started at 11am and ground to a halt at around midnight - though films were starting to make an appearance - as was the Queen, on both channels at 3pm, as she is this year.

Both channels started with a church service, and the Beeb stayed on the Royal/religious tack until after Her Majesty's message (ITV had indulged in a rather racy hour of 'light music' with Cyril Stapleton and his orchestra from 2pm).

After the message from Sandringham, the BBC whizzed off to Billy Smart's circus, against which ITV put up Walt Disney Characters.

Later the Beeb offered Plapp, a film about a seabird not introduced by David Attenborough (though his brother, Dickie, was over on ITV looking at film musicals).

By now we were into the evening and Auntie offered Christmas Night With the Stars - David Nixon, Charlie Chester, the Beverley Sisters, Charlie Drake, Ted Ray, Tony Hancock, Vera Lynn, Jimmy Edwards, Billy Cotton, Jack Warner and Perry Como. They must have had their skates on - all that talent had to fit into an hour and a quarter.

ITV countered with Max Bygraves Entertains, then Hughie Green with Double Your Money, a comedy with Ben Warriss and Jimmy Jewell, then a show called New Look, with Bruce Forsyth, Roy Castle, Jack Douglas and Joe Baker.

Ten years later there was still no escaping the Queen - though there were now three channels to choose from as BBC2 had arrived.

Hughie Green was still around with Opportunity Knocks on another new channel, Yorkshire Television, born in 1968. For all its youth, it plumped for the post-lunch visit to the circus, as did the BBC, which later offered the Black and White Minstrel Show. It later offered Christmas Night with the Stars - highlights of the year's comedy output, introduced by the duo who became almost synonymous with Christmas: Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise. They will be seen again this year, 14 years after the death of Eric Morecambe.

BBC2 tried to keep the flag of culture flying with the Royal Ballet version of The Nutcracker in the morning, and The Merry Widow in the evening, helped by the fact that for the first time its whole output was in colour.

Programmes kicked off at 8.45am and there were visits to Houston Control on all channels throughout the day for updates on the progress of Apollo 8. Not all the human race was spending Christmas 1968 on its home planet. Astronauts Frank Borman, William Anders and James Lovell were orbiting the moon, the first men to do so, and preparing the way for the first manned landing the following year.

By 1978 the TV's Christmas role as an electronic childminder was becoming established - though programmes didn't start until just before nine on the main channels, and not until 11.05 on BBC2..

But the day was taking a look which is still familiar: Noel Edmonds introduced Top of the Pops, Michael Crawford was Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, and Morecambe and Wise were still around, but on YTV, not the Beeb.

Michael Parkinson interviewed Arthur Askey, there was a James Bond film, a Franz Lehar operetta, a couple of ghost stories and the Queen (though not across the board any more. BBC2 had a royal exemption).

The Muppets were in their heyday and there was, for the third decade running, a trip to Billy Smart's circus - later a target for the politically correct. The Black and White Minstrels, a similar target, had disappeared.

By 1988 there were four channels and with dozens more in the offing from satellite. The main channels started earlier and ITV had begun to transmit 24 hours a day. Midnight was no longer bedtime and even BBC1 was on air until 1.45am with the film Carousel.

The Queen, meanwhile, stayed at 3pm on BBC1 and ITV, BBC2 once again exercised its royal prerogative not to show her at all, and Channel 4 showed her later, at teatime, shattering once and for all the Alf Garnett myth that she got up from her lunch 'before 'er puddin'' to speak live to her Commonwealth. She was a recording and always had been.

And by now, so was so much else seen over Christmas. The video recorder had become common. Which was just as well, because with four channels operating almost round the clock, the traditional 12 days of Christmas wouldn't be enough to show all that was on offer.

Which brings us forward ten years to the present, with enough films in a fortnight to provide a solid two and a half months' viewing.

If you can keep your eyes open...

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.