Dinner for One is the 1963 comedy sketch repeatedly broadcast on German television on New Year’s Eve.
The sketch features an elderly woman, Miss Sophie, celebrating her 90th birthday with a formal dinner. Her four invited guests are absent, so her butler, James, serves their courses and imitates each guest’s drinking. The recurring line “The same procedure as every year” became strongly associated with the broadcast.
British writer Lauri Wylie wrote the sketch, and Freddie Frinton and May Warden performed the best-known television version. The production was recorded in English for German television in 1963, which helps explain its unusual status: it became a German New Year institution despite not being originally German-language entertainment.
The program is especially associated with Germany and several northern European countries. It is often shown repeatedly or at multiple times on December 31. Its popularity is a television tradition, not a claim that the sketch depicts an actual historical New Year ceremony.