Oh, how parents will have related to Superworm (BBC One) on Christmas Day! In the opening pages of her popular 2012 picture book, the squishy pink hero stretches and contorts himself to the limit to ensure all the little creatures around him remain safe and entertained. 

One minute he’s coiled into a lasso to save a baby toad from oncoming traffic, the next he’s offering his services as a skipping rope because – despite the abundance of floral activities around them – the bees are “bored”. Towards the end of the tale, he’s sent tunnelling alone through the rubbish, as we inevitably are when it transpires that somebody has accidentally binned an essential Lego brick.

Since 2009, production company Magic Light’s annual animated versions of Julia Donaldson stories have been offering parents a welcome respite from their exertions. I’ve come to rely on the calming 30-minute oasis they provide in the middle of the hectic festivities. We always snuggle up on the sofa together to be lulled into a charmed world. 

My kids have pulled Santa hats over their eyes to hide from The Gruffalo and scoffed Quality Street while The Highway Rat “took what he wanted and ate what he took”. I’ve seen sibling brawls forgotten as cosy casts of national treasures savour every syllable of Donaldson’s pacifying pentameter, carefully unwrapping her tidy plots to reveal their perfect punchline presents.

Now my oldest is 12, and snarky, I worried the Donaldson spell might not work. In the first two minutes he made a point of scowling at the adorably anthropomorphised annelid on the screen and fact-checking it on his phone: “Do earthworms actually have eyes?” he queried. No. Thought not. They have cells that can detect light, though…”