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MUMBAI: It is that time of the year again, when the Earth twinkles with a million stars brighter than the constellations in the Heavens above, when red-robed St Nicholases descend from the North Pole on skis loaded with gifts and the sight n? scent of cakes of all shapes and sizes beckon from bakery display racks . And as the spirit of Yuletide sweep across the continents, Amrita TV presents a bagful of programmes that reflects all the joy and sweetness of Christmas.
Xmas Day celebrations opens on a musical note at 9.00am, with blossoming playback singer Sayanora and her family; feature film Paranthu starring Mammooty and Lakshmi Rai follows on its heals at 10.00am.
In Cakes and Me at 2.00pm, we spent half-an-hour exploring the ?heavenly? side of Christmas ? the delectable, mouth-watering world of Xmas cakes. The 1st segment takes us into the aromatically appetizing kitchens of a well-known bakery, where the entire cake continuum from dainty fluffies, layered, leavened, round, oblong, square, star-shaped to the heavily iced are produced. The succeeding segments present easy-to-bake cake recipes, one in the traditional oven and the other a pressure cooker quickie that are lip-smacking additions to one?s collection.
Pattil Padmaragam at 2.30 pm is a heart-to-heart conversation with playback celebrity Sreenivas, in which he casts his mind back over to his early days as a singer, his fruitful association with maestro AR Rehman, the first State Award that he won and many other interesting tidbits from his life.
The fledging stars of the film firmament, Reema Kallungal, the heroine of ?Rithu? and Kailesh & Archana Kavi, the lead pair of ?Neelathamara? share small screen space in a 1 hour chat show Shinning Stars at 3.30pm. The threesome exchange their debutante experiences, that bear strong similarities, all three having started their innings under stalwarts of Malayalam Cinema- Reema expounds on her thrill at working with world famous director, Shyamaprasad and the other two relive the jitters they had, in stepping into M.T Vasudevan?s characters.
Music Mix at 4.30pm is an exceptional anthology of Xmas songs from a range of Malayalam films, that include both forgotten favorites from black & white classics as well as fresh numbers from the latest hits. At 5.30 pm , Amrita TV takes off to the location of the film Mummy and Me, into the midst of its star cast and crew in Mummyum Njanum Pinne Nakshathranghalum ; joins in their fun as they deck up the sets with stars, balloons, lights and festoons; listens to the starry Xmas reminiscences of of Urvasi, Sari, Archan Kavi, Lalu Alex and Kunchakko Boban .
Super Dancer Xmas Special at 7.00pm steps in tune to the jingle bells, with Anna the winner of Super Dancer Junior, Prashant topper of Super Dancer-1 taking the floor first, followed by all the contestants of Super Dancer-2 waltzing to an Usha Uthup number. At 7.30pm, in a Xmas segment of Super Star -2, the jovial and rotund M.Jayachandran disappears suddenly from the judge?s dias, to appear on stage in the midst of the contestants as a very convincing Santa Claus, distributing cakes and gifts, with Alphonse chiming in with a Christmas carol accompanied by Stephen on the keyboard.
