Kirstie's Handmade Christmas was an artisan way to give you the hump this festive season

Some programmes over the festive period seem designed to make me fume, and Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas (Channel 4, Tuesday, 8pm) was precision-engineered to have me slapping my forehead in exasperation and exclaiming “are you kidding me?!” at the TV set.
Kirstie Allsopp showed off her handmade Christmas. Picture: Channel 4Kirstie Allsopp showed off her handmade Christmas. Picture: Channel 4
Kirstie Allsopp showed off her handmade Christmas. Picture: Channel 4

Property guru Kirstie spent an hour telling us how to make some handmade decorations and a few little luxuries for the Christmas table – all time-consuming, and frankly ludicrously expensive ‘treats’ to make at home.

Many of them looked like they would take at least a day to knock up, or needed weeks to mature, set and generally actually work.

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This is handmade stuff for people who only shop at places selling ‘artisan’ goods, or see something more ‘authentic’ about Christmas if stuff has been made by themselves, having bought the entire contents of Hobbycraft.

A resin-decorated tray takes a pre-existing tray, two types of resin, four types of paint, glitter, shimmery gold stuff and a heat gun.

A Christmas tree made out of paper snowflakes looks like it would take five weeks to put together, while homemade bitters for your Christmas cocktails uses cinchona bark, which a quick google reveals costs £44 for 225g, “easily available online”, simpers Kirstie.

It is all utterly infuriating, seemingly shot through a Vaseline-smeared lens to get that festive, glowing look, and studded with voiceovers laden with awful puns.

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It’s for people who are time-rich, cash-rich... just rich, basically. I mean who, seriously, would look at these things and think “ooh, that looks quick and simple, I’ll have a go at that”?

It’s smug, soulless, and ire-inducing, and I’m off to calm down.

Inside the Christmas Factory (BBC2, Thursday, 8.55pm) saw gurning Gregg Wallace unleash his rictus grin on the makers of festive party food. Like a CBBC show, but with less intellectual rigour.

Best Christmas show this week was Lucy Worsley’s Christmas Carol Odyssey (BBC4, Monday, 9pm), full of interesting factual nuggets and the most beautiful music. A delight.

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