Before the festive period began I was pretty sure what my Christmas television highlights would be.

The terrible revelation in front of the entire Branning household and friends, by dvd, of Max and Stacey's affair in EastEnders was up there. As was the return of To the Manor Born after a 26-year absence from our screens; The Queen's speech; and the 197th seasonal showing of Bugsy Malone (still Jodie Foster's finest performance after Silence of the Lambs).

But in the end, it was none of the above.

No, my Christmas TV highlight came on Boxing Day at 11am, courtesy of Channel 4 - so good they played it twice (it was repeated the following day at 11.40pm).

The 30 minute documentary Jake's Adventures in Dollywood was the programme that caught my attention this Christmas.

Now who'd have thought it - a documentary (sort of) turning out to be my Christmas cracker. But it was lovely.

Basically, the show followed Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears as he got the chance to meet his heroine Dolly Parton.

My one and only gripe with the show was the title, which made me think Jake was going to Dollywood.

He actually got nowhere near the place - meeting Dolly at London's Dorchester hotel instead.

It was clearly a big moment in his life, a moment he described beforehand as "like meeting your fairy godmother".

But prior to meeting the great lady herself he was introduced to her wardrobe by Dolly's director of creative services' Steve Summers.

The travelling wardrobe contained no less than 100 outfits for her one week trip to London to promote next year's Backwoods Barbie tour. Apparently Dolly never likes to be seen in the same sparkly thing twice while doing promotional interviews.

Not that any of that matters really, since, as Steve told Jake: "The first thing you will notice about her is that you won't notice what she has on".

I'm not sure that's strictly true, since if Dolly had nothing on, I think you'd notice.

Anyway, the point he was making was that Jake would be bowled over by her personality, not her clothes - although the clothes are pretty awesome too, aren't they?

Having been introduced to her clothes Jake then went off to prepare himself for meeting the woman who wears them by getting out his little box of Dolly memorabilia. It included a Dollywood mug (which I reckon I could trump with my Dollywood keyring) and a picture of Dolly signing a record for Jake when he was a youngster.

Watching a grown man lay out his Dolly memorabilia just made you like him all the more.

The following day Jake had his dream meeting and Dolly was her usual charming self, answering questions she had been asked thousands of times before with good grace and humour. She admitted for interviews: "I say the same thing over and over again, and try to keep it interesting."

But the highlight of the interview came when Dolly picked up her guitar and started playing, encouraging Jake to join in the song.

Jake walked out on cloud nine, saying: "That was one of the highlights of my life. She's a saint and one of the most amazing women that has lived during my lifetime."

Amen to that.

It was all a marked contrast to Richard Hammond's meeting with Evel Knievel, shown just a few days earlier. Knievel was the Top Gear presenter's childhood hero, but as this show illustrated, sometimes it's better not to meet your heroes (unless they're Dolly Parton, of course).

Knievel may have been good at jumping over things (sometimes.) but he was sadly lacking in the humility stakes, coming across as an arrogant and bitter old man who gave the Hamster' the runaround during his time in the States.

In fact, the only time Evel was nice to the little man was when he was leaving.

If I was Richard, I wouldn't have bothered hanging around as long as he did - but then I suppose it's hard to accept your life-long hero is a bit of a plonker.

Oh well Richard, don't worry - there's always Dolly.