WHEN I think back to Christmases past, it surprises me how big a role TV plays these memories.

The excitement of unwrapping presents under the tree on Christmas morning features too, of course. But gathering round the telly in the evening was always a highlight of Christmas Day chez Taylor in the 1980s, as I imagine it was for so many.

I can still picture us, three generations side-by-side on the MFI suite, hooting with laughter at The Only Fools and Horses Christmas Special, glued to the Big Film (or “picture” as my grandfather would always call it). Indeed, the TV premiere of ET, Raiders of the Lost Ark or Back To The Future was such a big deal in those days we’d crack open a tin of Quality Street to mark the occasion.

Like it or not, this simply isn’t how folk watch TV these days, not even – especially not even – at Christmas. Thanks to our multitude of tablets and smart devices, all loaded up with apps such as Netfix, Amazon Prime Video and BBC iPlayer, often listened to via expensive headphones, watching TV is now a far more solitary affair. This Christmas Day evening we’ll more likely to be in a TV world of our own choosing (possibly even in another room) watching a box-set.

Will the whole family ever again sit down together a la 1985? Maybe not. But this is surely a societal and technological change rather than the fault of any one broadcaster.

And that’s why I think recent criticism over the Christmas Day listings is so unfair.

The BBC schedule, in particular, was met with hoots of derision on social media, with memes quickly doing the rounds suggesting BBC1’s Christmas Day line-up, which includes a Strictly Come Dancing special, Call the Midwife, EastEnders and Mrs Brown’s Boys, was actually a clever spoof produced to advertise Netflix.

Telegraph writer Michael Hogan moaned that viewers would find their stockings “worryingly empty” on Christmas Day, laying into the BBC for failing to find room for Doctor Who, a big period drama or a much-loved detective on its December 25 schedule. To be fair, all of these will be appear between Christmas and New Year.

Most disappointing of all, Hogan wailed on, is the lack of a crowd-pleasing comedy to unite the generations, reeling off the likes of Morecambe and Wise, One Foot in the Grave, Men Behaving Badly and the Vicar of Dibley as examples. Interestingly, I recall all of these being Marmite shows, loved and loathed in equal measure, but there you go.

To be fair to the BBC, a line-up that contains Strictly, Call the Midwife, EastEnders and Mrs Brown’s Boys won’t be to everyone’s taste, but in its own way it does reflect modern Britain. I also reckon it will please the target audience.

I don’t particularly want to watch Danny Dyer yelling “I’m not ‘aving it in my pub” on Christmas night, but then I wasn’t interested in Den serving Angie those divorce papers in the festive episode of EastEnders watched back in 1986 by more than 30 million people, either.

No single programme would or could attract that number of viewers these days, but since millions still watch soaps, a Christmas Day visit to the Queen Vic or the Rovers Return is surely a welcome and expected part of the schedule for many.

Taste, then, as well as tradition, will always play a part. My beloved grandmother always watched The Queen’s broadcast to the nation, while I never missed the Top of the Pops Christmas Special that preceded it.

Regardless of this, however, I think the BBC’s critics are missing the point completely. Put simply, times change.

During what we now seem to look back upon as the golden age of Christmas TV, the 1970s, 80s and even 90s, the period we seem to get so nostalgic about, my aforementioned grandmother was regretting the loss of the Christmas Day evenings of her youth, in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, which had been spent around the piano singing Christmas songs.

She seemed sad that people didn’t come together as a family to listen to the “wireless” any more, or play games like charades. One change she always embraced and relished in the 1980s, however, was the fact that Christmas Day was a public holiday at all. When she was young this wasn’t the case in Scotland; unlike in England, many factories, shipyards, shops and offices would stay open on December 25, a practice that went back to the Reformation.

Technology may have made our modern Christmas Day more fractured, even a bit less social, but at least we get to spend it in a togetherness of sorts. Indeed, the very smartphones and tablets we decry for being antisocial allow us to communicate with loved ones far away and overseas in a way we could never have dreamed of even a few years ago.

So, let’s not be too harsh on the Beeb over the lack of Christmas TV crackers. Especially since the channel is also gifting us more than 100 box-sets. Just think, you’ll be able to watch them on your new Christmas tablet.