1993-97 1998-2001 2002-04 2005-07 2005  
 
In this age of environmental awareness we have seen a recycling of festive idents on a scale never witnessed before. But in a refreshing change, for the first time in three years, both main BBC channels unveiled new idents for Christmas 2005, at 6.30pm on Saturday 17th December - a full eight days before Christmas! As far as BBC1 was concerned, well it was a case of same old, same old, but BBC2 surprised us with an ident far superior to anything seen on the channel since the introduction of the yellow 2s; here we see the 2 stripped of its personality at last, with something more reminiscent of the pre-2001 idents. Meanwhile the 2001-03 idents were at last banished. Video clips: BBC1  BBC2  
Above: a couple of BBC1 between-trailer bumpers. It's unclear why this type of presentation device only makes an appearance at Christmas.   
Above: two further variations on the BBC2 ident, and a '2night' trailer animation. 
BBC4 also went festive for the first time with a frosty variant of its recently introduced ident package; meanwhile nearly a week earlier BBC3 brought out its own set of Christmas decorations first seen in 2004.
2006  
This is getting ridiculous, St Nicholas! Some of us had barely put our Christmas decorations up before the BBC decided to unveil its own festive adornments for 2006, at around 6.00pm on Saturday 16th December. Thankfully there were no more more kids in daft costumes, as BBC1 brought us the first Christmas variant of the circle idents, in which a community comes together to build a giant snowball. Presumably they live in some parallel universe where it actually snows at Christmas... Watch a clip BBC2, as widely expected, re-used 2005's effort, though since it was so good I didn't really mind on this occasion! BBC3 and BBC4 also brought back festive idents from previous years.   
Festive 'stings', which reappeared once more on BBC1.
2007  
 
Continuing the trend of the 21st century, BBC1 and BBC2's Christmas idents for 2007 were once again revealed a day earlier than the year before, debuting almost simultaneously at 6.10pm on Saturday 15th December. At this rate we'll soon have Christmas idents all year round... BBC1 have gone for the obvious ice skating penguins scenario this year (with 2006's 'Snowball' also making a reapperance), while on the other channel the first 'window on the world' Christmas idents feel much more traditionally 'BBC2' than those seen during the yellow years. Video clips: BBC1 BBC2  
Festive BBC1 stings. 
A second version of BBC2's ident. The BBC1 penguin ident bizarrely returned to our screens on 5th February 2008, with different music and without the tree in the middle. 1993-97 1998-2001 2002-04 2005-07
Telly Years: find out what was on BBC television on Christmas Day in years gone by - click here | 
