It was a Christmas tradition ruined! (Picture: ITV)

Emmerdale’s Dingle family have a lot of traditions. There’s the whole ‘drinking out of a welly’ thing – the unhygienic habit that is used to mark special occasions and means you’re really part of the family.

There’s also their quirky custom of convening a special court to sort out matters of justice between themselves, which forms part of the Dingle Code – that family comes first and Dingles deal with their own stuff and never involve the police.

In Wednesday (December 13)’s visit to the Dales we learned of another Dingle tradition.

They always go ice skating on Christmas Eve, apparently. But Belle (Eden Taylor-Draper) lamented to Chas (Lucy Pargeter) that it wouldn’t be possible this year, ‘Because the ice rink burned down.’

It was probably burned down by Cain (Jeff Hordley) so he could get out of donning the skates for the annual festive event, but whatever happened poor Belle is disappointed. ‘It’s our little family tradition. It’s my favourite. Well, it was,’ she lamented.

Turns out the Dingles enjoy gliding around on the ice (Picture: ITV)

Aside from Mandy (Lisa Riley) once mentioning that she and Vinny (Bradley Johnson) used to go ice skating all the time when he was a child, the Dingle mania for winter sports hasn’t really been highlighted before.

But it’s not as random as it sounds, because Belle’s sadness over the loss of her annual festive treat has given Tom an idea to ‘Make Belle’s Christmas amazing.’

And we know that skating is going to feature prominently in Emmerdale over Christmas as a special episode will feature legendary ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean.

The icons filmed the special scenes – in which they’ll play themselves – in Leeds, with their appearance helping one of the characters to make a marriage proposal.

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‘Torvill and Dean certainly promise to bring the Christmas magic sparkle to the show,’ producer Laura Shaw told us.

Soaps fan Jayne Torvill added, ‘I can’t wait to watch the episode that we are going to be in. It will be surreal sitting at home watching it.’

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