Celebrities share how they spend their Christmas day

WHAT ARE YOUR FAMILY’S FAVOURITE FESTIVE TRADITIONS?

Matt Tebbutt, chef and TV presenter

 “I’ve cooked the last couple of years, and I really like doing it. I like getting down to the pub in the morning. Obviously we weren’t allowed to do that last year, were we? Which was a shame. But this year, hopefully, that’ll be back on the cards. Yeah, go to the pub, come back, late lunch. Try and kind of make the day quite long, really, glass of Buck’s Fizz in the morning, or two or three. Stick the dinner in, have a walk to the pub, a couple of pints, rush back, try and sort of, you know, put it all together, and then just a late one so you don’t have to worry about the evening.”

Julia Donaldson, writer 

“We always watch the [BBC One] animation on Christmas Day, but I think mainly it’s just fun playing games. We play this game called the adverbs game, where one person goes out of the room and the others think of an adverb, like, if it’s just for very little children, you might say ‘happily’. And then they come back in, and they ask you questions, and you have to answer ‘happily’ – or it could be something like it surreptitiously. So we just do those sorts of things and charades. It’s very much a family time. We’re going to Scotland this Christmas to see our son and daughter-in-law up there who have got six children – all 10 and under. They’ve got about 25 or more cousins so there will be loads and loads of children around!”

Amanda Holden, actor and TV presenter 

“Christmas Day starts early and it’s normally me that’s up, not them [the kids]. We all have stockings, including the rabbits. We’ve got two rabbits and a dog and a cat. So Father Christmas is very generous. And then we normally open everything and I will have a Buck’s Fizz while we’re doing that. I like to make smoked salmon and scrambled eggs for breakfast, which no-one eats, but I still like to do it. They all like going to play with their toys. And then I love starting to cook the dinner quite early, in an apron, with my mum, with Michael Buble playing! We have a nice lunch at the proper time and then just chill the rest of the day, really. Play with the toys and watch Christmas telly.”

Rob Beckett, comedian and TV presenter 

“This year my mum and dad will be coming to us for Christmas dinner. I love staying in at Christmas. At Christmas we go for it; we have two trees – one in the kitchen, one in the front room. We have lights at the front and loads of presents. We normally get all our brothers together on Christmas Eve (four brothers) so that’s a big event. I treat myself to a Marks & Spencer’s food order – that’s the big middle-class Christmas. I pick it up on Christmas Eve like a big posh sod. I would never have admitted that until recently because I would have been scared that people would have thought, ‘He’s changed, we hate Rob Beckett now, so we’ll never go and see him again’. You might be ringing me up next year to find that no-one’s gone to my tour dates, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

David Harewood, actor

 “Very early presents opening – then there’s that lull when you’re opening your toys. I’m still like a kid, so I still expect a Scalextric or something, and it’s normally something boring for adults. But once I’ve opened my presents, it’s chocolate, tea, and then I love that whole preparation of the food, the smell of the food being cooked, pigs in blankets, gravy, sprouts. I love munching on the food, sitting sozzled at around three, four o’clock, tuning into some animated Christmas classic, just like [The Abominable] Snow Baby, and then fall asleep. And then the evening movie – Bond movie, or some Spielberg classic that you’ve seen a thousand times before, but you just want to see it again. That’s Christmas Day for me. A day of food, drink, presents and togetherness.”

Hugh Dancy, actor

 “As of about two years ago, somebody gave us matching Christmas pyjamas. So the first thing that happens is your matching Christmas pyjamas (go on). Then, for some reason that I haven’t quite grasped, my wife’s family has half a grapefruit with a glace cherry; that’s a very specific Christmas requirement for breakfast. Not saying that’s the first thing, because we’ve got kids and there would be mutiny if we were like, ‘First, the grapefruit!’ And everything else is pretty straightforward – stockings first, and then I’m the cook, so you’ve got one eye on the stockings and the presents and the other eye on the turkey, or whatever it might be. I do enjoy it [being the Christmas cook] and it’s also probably true that I won’t let anybody else do it.”

Julie Walters, actor

 “Sitting in front of the fire in my pyjamas, opening presents and drinking tea. That’s the main traditional thing, in front of the fire. Then my husband’s out on the farm, he comes in and I cook the turkey – one of our turkeys.”

Tom Allen, comedian, actor and TV presenter

 “In our family, we always have a bottle of Asti Spumante in the morning because my mum likes that, which is quite retro, isn’t it? So, we have some Asti Spumante and open presents, and then usually there’s some beginnings of cooking happening, which is quite exciting, and then we usually eat really late. I think some families have like a great regimented ‘We sit down at 12!’ My family are quite sloth-like and we get up really late and it’s a slow start to the day. I’ve usually been up late the night before, panicking about wrapping and not having enough wrapping paper. So we have dinner late and then probably drink too much and then I fall asleep. But it’s quite unusual this year because I’ve just moved into my first home, so it’s my first year of hosting. So, I’m going to need Christmas decorations for one thing! And we’re having beef not turkey, because I heard there was going to be a turkey shortage, but apparently there are loads of turkeys?!”

Ralf Little, actor

 “I’m going to spend Christmas with my mum, who I’ve not seen for ages, in North Devon. Obviously I’m from Manchester originally, but after my first season here (filming Death In Paradise in Guadeloupe), in 2019, I had to then spend the Christmas period helping my mum move down to Devon. So, I’m going to reap the rewards of that and just have a lovely time there chilling out. My brother’s going to come down, so it’s going to be nice. But I am going to be cold, for the first time since July 2020, which is when I arrived here – and I haven’t been back to the UK since. So I’m going to be cold, but not too miserable, spend it with my mum and have a lovely Christmas dinner.”

Ricky Wilson, singer-songwriter

 “Christmas this year is a looming date because I really want to be in my house for Christmas. December 20th is the current date. We’re having some work done and I went around the other day and I saw the builder and I was in the kitchen and I joked, ‘This is where the Christmas tree is going to go’ and he went, ‘Next year?’ So that was a bit negative. I also need to get a sofa and I didn’t realise how long they take to arrive! So I’m a little scared this year as I’ve already invited the in-laws, and Grace’s family to Christmas dinner but I don’t think we’ll even have a kitchen table. I’ll be on Henry the hoover, they’ll all be on deckchairs and we’ll eat off our knees.”

Vick Hope, TV and radio presenter

 “Mine’s just a chance for us to be together, to go back to Newcastle. We’re all grown up now, me and all my brothers, and we all have these lives that mean that it’s really the only time that we get to be together as a family of six. We tend to go a bit rogue at Christmas. I remember one year we had paella, one year we had Indian food, one year we had Thai. So we’ll see. I think it will be for a couple of days – I get 10 days off radio, I think, and I’m really excited because I’ve not had a break for a year. The most I’ve had is three days at a time which my mum was like, ‘You’ve just had a weekend!’ so it will be just nice to have an extended period of time off.”

Fern Britton, author and TV presenter

 “Well, mine this year is to not do any tradition at all. My children are growing up, so they are often away somewhere else in the UK, so they’ll be having their own Christmases. I have one daughter, I think, coming and I said to her the other day, ‘What should we do on Christmas Day? I really don’t want to do anything traditional. What do you really want to eat?’ And she said, ‘Spaghetti bolognaise’. So I said, ‘Right, OK, I fancy a curry’, so we’re going to be cooking spaghetti bolognaise and curry – but we’ll also have pigs in blankets and roast potatoes of course. So it’s a weird one. No sprouts, obviously, and just have a laugh and probably spend the day in our jim jams.”

Radzi Chinyanganya, TV presenter

 “One Christmas, my mum and I actually went to the Vatican and that was just incredible. I happen to be Catholic, I happen to be Christian, so it will be Midnight Mass – the thing my mum and I will go to. And then it’ll be a late start and the one rule we’ve got, I’ve got, for the last 15 years, I have to start the morning with chocolate. Nothing else can touch your lips. It has to be chocolate – preferably Cadbury’s and preferably Fruit & Nut.”