Please don't let 1998's dull lot be repeated thought.
I actually thought the Xmas 1998 BBC1 was nice. Lovely stings, bright visuals, thought the clean simplicity of the idea worked in its favour. But maybe, what swung it was the music - again, simple, but it worked.
One thing they don't seem to want to take into account anymore for soundtracks, is a distinct 'bed' section after the start which is particularly anno-friendly - such a style was popular on BBC1 during the Balloon era.
Like most of the current idents, Snowball and Penguins didn't take that into consideration, whereas 1998, 2000, and 2001 had Xmas tracks which used the intro-into-bed style very obviously, and to brilliant effect - particularly the latter two, which IIRC have been marked out by folks as being among the very best of BBC festive symbols.
(Ch