Celebrities' Christmas memories
Fatima Whitbread, Sharon Horgan, Jo Brand, Chris Addison, Jennifer Ehle, Stewart Lee and others, including Guardian writers, share their most memorable and poignant stories about festive seasons past
Fatima Whitbread: My family challenged me to throw the javelin on the Xbox. I was up until 2am
Last year there were about 14 of us celebrating in Essex. After lunch and the presents we relaxed: we usually do karaoke, because the littl'uns like to get up and sing, or play some games. We've got quite a few kids in our family, and when they are around you really enter into the spirit of things.
But last year my sister-in-law, Claire, said: "We've got a new game for you, Fats." So they put on an Xbox Olympics game that was all about athletics, and challenged me to throw the javelin. Everyone was laughing and I laughed too, but had a go. They know how competitive I am and it turned out they had all been practising for a week but not told me about it. So I had to stay up until 2am to make sure that I beat them. The next day I was very tired. They were all in on the joke, which was a bit naughty of them. The funniest thing was, I actually broke the world record in the end. It's very different doing it on the game: you've got to know the aerodynamics and the angle to hit the button. It took a few goes, but I got there in the end. My sister-in-law's mum's sister was very good actually. She threw 96 metres, but I got 103. I nailed it in the last few throws. (As told to Sarah Phillips)
Suzanne Moore: I dropped acid on Christmas Eve. At lunch the next day, I was freaked by the tinsel worms
I am not sure if Christmas on LSD counts as good or bad. In my defence I was about 16 and, as my mother used to tell the neighbours, "against everything". Plus a change. We used to do a lot of acid. Well, I lived in Ipswich, my boyfriend was a drug dealer and I wanted to expand my mind. We began quite reverently: reading Huxley and lots of RD Laing and then it j! ust bec ame something we did. I could go to school tripping away and my religious education teacher would say: "Are you on drugs, Moore?" To which I could say with 16-year-old insouciance: "Yeah I am actually, Miss." "Is it because you are from a broken home?" she would ask, believing this to be helpful.
But I was always far more interested in drugs than drink, which was freely available at home. My mum drank, and Christmas usually consisted of her shoving the dinner on the table, scotch in hand, crying and saying we were "gannets" for gobbling it up. The family dysfunction had become even more apparent with the death of my grandmother. My grandad, who was deaf, had to live with us, which meant the TV on full volume all the time. So I dropped the acid very late on Christmas Eve and went home at about 8am but my mum made me come down for Christmas dinner which, because we were working class, we had to have about noon. I was dressed in black and freaked out by tinsel worms everywhere. Crackers were possible bombs as my mum was so cross. Why did the chicken cross the road? This sent me down a corridor of massed chickens on zebra crossings. Were we eating a chicken that had crossed the road?
My mum was understandably angry and said I needed a drink. And gave me eggnog. My grandad (a Tory) had not been so cross since I had joined the Workers' Revolutionary party at 14. I was indeed being entirely selfish and was rebelling. Against what though?
My last memory is throwing up but being fascinated by the colours of my own puke. Mum may have slapped me at this point and I don't blame her.
But I really don't want to be a bad influence, kids. I think in the right circumstances acid is amazing but advocaat it's lethal. Just say no.
Alex Zane: The unholy sound I created on my clarinet caused the family argument that year
In 1989 and aged 10, having been coerced into learning the clarinet I'd actually wanted to play the guitar I was asked to perform something delightful and Chri! stmassy for some relatives. This photo was taken in the moments before their undisguised disappointment at the fact that it wasn't so much Jingle Bells that came out of the instrument as an unholy series of squeaks and whines. Although it was never directly attributed to me, I believe it was the sound I created that caused the family argument that year. I was certainly never asked to play again.
Jo Brand: I was chucked out at 6am and hitchhiked from Fulham to Kent
In 1974 when I was 17, I got stuck in London overnight and had to stay with my boyfriend at his place of work, a residential home for adolescents. As I wasn't meant to be there I was chucked out at 6 o'clock on Christmas morning and had to hitchhike from Fulham to Kent to meet some friends for lunch. I encountered a lovely, camp man who invited me for lunch, a man who'd gone out for a paper, but was fed up with his wife so drove me miles out of his way and a woman who made a pass at me. And when I got there at 5pm, they'd saved me a lunch, but eaten all the roast potatoes the tragedy.
Charlie Condou: I awoke during the night to see my dad shovelling tangerines into the pillowcase
Christmas Eve, 1980. As usual, I had gone to bed sick with excitement. I was determined that this was the year I would stay awake and finally meet Santa. Of course, I was asleep within minutes but awoke during the night and, to my horror, discovered my slightly pissed dad shovelling tangerines and walnuts into the pillowcase I had laid out at the bottom of my bed. I was devastated. Kay Scott from school was right: there was no Father Christmas. I spent the next day in a daze of disenchantment and betrayal.
A year later and while I'd come to terms with the biggest disappointment of my life, it was hard to work up the same excitement. Once again, for my main present, I'd asked for a Girl's World (a giant decapitated doll's head with "lifelike" hair to style why my parents were shocked when I came out I'll never know), and once again, my ! request had been ignored. Christmas was obviously for credulous children and I no longer felt a part of it.
My big obsession of the time was the Human League. I desperately wanted to be Phil Oakey (OK if I'm honest, Susan Ann Sulley) and would spend hours trying to fashion my blunt fringe into a long side-parted flick. Christmas morning was the usual chaos and we whipped through present-opening so that my mum and dad could get on with overcooking the veg for lunch. My last gift was from my big sister Niki; a big box with gold wrapping and a ribbon. Inside was her old record player, which I had coveted for years. But what followed took my breath away. She'd also bought me my first ever 7in vinyl, Human League's Don't You Want Me. That record felt like a ticket to adulthood and it marked a turning point for me. Records were for grownups, or more importantly, teenagers. My sister had seen that I was moving into a new phase and as always helped me along the way. Suddenly Christmas was rescued, no longer something that I'd grown out of. I still have that dusty old vinyl and I still feel like an adult whenever I look at it.
Blake Morrison: There must have been a tree, presents. But dad was absent and part of me was missing too
I always knew when Christmas had arrived. For 51 weeks a year my father's billiard table served as his desk and lay hidden under heaps of bumf. But on Christmas Eve the cover would come off to reveal a miracle of green baize. There was a piano in the room as well, and a drinks cupboard. All the seasonal festivities took place there the games, songs and illicit swigs of booze with my father the master of ceremonies, or lord of misrule.
Those were the best Christmases. The worst was the first one he wasn't there for, 1991. His cancer had been diagnosed three months earlier. He died on 15 December and his funeral took place on the 20th. I remember stocking up for the wake at the local Skipton supermarket gin, whisky, wine, beer and nibbles. "Now here's someone who's go! ing to h ave a good Christmas," the woman at the checkout said, with a wink. Actually, the wake was a bit like Christmas, the house full of friends and relations again. But with a hole in the middle where my dad had been.
Life might have been over but I'd a young family to think of: we'd just moved into a new house, and it was important to make a go of things for Christmas. In truth, I can't remember much about it that year. There must have been a tree, presents, roast turkey, mince pies, the usual. But my dad was absent and part of me had gone missing too.
The following year I bought a table-tennis table. For 51 weeks it sat with its sides tipped up in the basement, out of use. But on Christmas Eve I unfolded its wings to reveal the miraculous green surface, so that the Saturnalian celebrations could begin again, the games, songs and booze.
Jason Isaacs: Something magical happened when all four generations were together
My kids Lily and Ruby, their grandma Claire and great-grandma Edith wake up on Christmas morning 2006. My wife Emma is cooking breakfast and, as always, I'm the official photographer. My mother-in-law had moved from Canada to live up the road in London and my grandmother-in-law traditionally left Devon to spend the holidays with us. Something magical happened when all four generations were sleeping together, dancing together and sharing stories together and I became determined to get them to move in permanently. It took a couple of years, but finally we did it and, for a while, domestic life was bliss. Until I had to move to America. Oops.
Rebecca Front: I knew I was never going to be chosen as a boy chorister, being a Jewish girl from Essex
Every Christmas Eve, we used to listen to evensong live from King's College chapel in Cambridge, and I'm almost ashamed to admit that it was my geeky fantasy to be chosen to perform the opening solo verse of Once In Royal David's City. It was never going to happen really, what with my not being a boy chorister but r! ather a Jewish girl from Essex. One year, however, I did get asked to sing a solo at the local Methodist church carol concert. It was In the Bleak Midwinter. My parents and brother, who for all their adherence to Jewish practices would never pass up the opportunity to pop into a cathedral or listen to some nice hymns, would come and support me, I knew. What I didn't expect was that my grandma, a tiny East End matriarch, would be there in her best winter coat, beaming at me as I sang about the birth of what was, after all, a good Jewish boy. To my knowledge, she'd never set foot in a church before, and I was deeply touched that she'd come. But then, a true Jewish grandmother can "shep nachas" (take pride) in any situation.
Ian Martin: I went into the back garden for a smoke. Right on cue, the snow began
After the first 50 or so, all happy Christmases resemble one another. Unhappy Christmases are each unhappy in their own way dead mum, sick child, vegetarian dinner but still. Christmas generally makes things better rather than worse. They all merge into one tipsy blur. Magical, breath-catching moments are rarer but I had one two years ago. Our grandson Isaac was born in the run-up to Christmas 2009 that's him in a minimalist crib at Wythenshawe hospital. I'd gone to bring him and his zombie parents back to ours on Christmas Eve. I vaguely remember driving up the M6 at about 15 miles an hour. Arrived safely, unpacked, then that fantastic feeling you get when you've harvested the family, got them stacked like mulled wheat in the front room and you shut the front door for the last time: lock-in. And a Christmas baby! Everyone so exhausted and exhilarated. I went into the back garden for a smoke with his dad. We shut the back door and then right on cue the snow began, slow and heavy and sure and strong, as if we were suddenly being written into the first verse of a carol. A miraculous feeling. The snow started to settle, muffling the dusk. We went back inside, where the hushed adoration ! had resu med, and continues to this day.
Tim Jonze: My mum and gran were celebrating with a massive row about gifts
Whenever I think about this picture, it makes me wish my grandma was still here . It was taken on Christmas Day and my mum and gran were celebrating in their own style with a massive row about the gifts they'd bought each other. Said row was conducted with the expert precision of two people who'd spent years working out exactly how to push each other's buttons.
"I don't know why she had to get me another candle," my gran muttered at the dinner table, just loudly enough to create the desired effect. "I've got enough tat as it is ..." In the post-nuclear fallout of the row, my grandma a couple of sherries down the line by this time announced nobody was having nearly enough fun. To emphasise her point, she yanked the string on a party popper and sat there as its contents landed neatly on her head.
"Well at least I'm enjoying myself," she said, looking more like someone in a stinker of a mood but with the contents of a party popper draped over her face. Cue mass hysterics and the feeling that Christmas day could continue, as if the candle comment had never happened.
Rev Giles Fraser: The churchwarden's keen armlock was more appropriate for Carlos the Jackal
Midnight mass has changed its character since the extension of last orders. It is no longer the last port of call for the pub drunk. I suppose I ought to welcome this newfound sobriety at a solemn celebration of the birth of Christ. But there was something distinctively Christmassy about the well-meaning anarchy brought by the well-oiled group at the back with their silly hats and lusty singing.
And midnight mass was the time that churchwardens came into their own. When the vicar is marooned behind the altar, it is the churchwardens who have responsibility for keeping order. Many carry a rod to indicate their authority.
Sometimes this authority goes a little to their head. It is true that! the cha p shouldn't have lit a fag from the candle on the Christmas wreath. But he was on his way out anyway and the clouds of incense masked the smell. But the armlock in which he was held by the overly enthusiastic churchwarden was more appropriate for the arrest of Carlos the Jackal.
The last I saw of him he was being frog marched down the isle and roughly bundled out into the night to the sound of O Come All Ye Faithful. His frank response was a tirade of swearwords, contrasting nicely with the sentiments of peace on earth and goodwill to all. All this colour is now a thing of the past. These days, there is always more room (and more time) at the inn.
Diana Athill: It seemed that everything was holding its breath, waiting for something tremendous
Christians knew what they were doing when they chose the deep midwinter for Christ's birthday.
I remember so clearly the Christmas Eve when, seven years old and still young enough to believe that my stocking was about to be filled by Santa Claus, I stood at my bedroom window staring up into the clear night sky, and became awestruck. The silence, the immensity of the sky, so still, yet tingling with its innumerable stars ... it came to me that everything, not just me expecting the delights of tomorrow, but everything in the world, was holding its breath, waiting for something tremendous to happen.
And of course it was.
Even a child could sense that the year was hovering on the edge of tipping from darkness to light. From their very first awareness of the seasons, this must have been the time recognised by mankind as worthy of solemn celebration.
Chris Addison: We rushed into the dining room to discover the candles had set the piano alight
An Australian friend was spending her first Christmas away from home, so we invited her to my parents' house in Manchester. We wanted to make it as much like you'd read in storybooks as possible for her and to her wide-eyed delight it even snowed. After the meal we put the! candles from the table on the piano and moved into the next room.
About 10 minutes later my wife noticed flames in the hall mirror. We rushed into the dining room to discover the candles had fallen on the cards lined along the top of the piano, which was now alight. Dumb panic ensued. Only my brother-in-law had the presence of mind to run for water. One of us (I won't say who) stood in the doorway blowing at the piano as though it were a match.
When the fire was out, all the keys had stuck together. If you could have pressed them they'd have all played at once, like some annoying piece especially commissioned by Radio 3. My Australian friend still tells the story of that Christmas. She never talks about the snow, though.
Patrick Kingsley: I wanted to give the viewer the impression of looking through a dense forest of holly
I don't really give Christmas presents, but I'm childishly proud of my handmade cards. I send them to a few close friends and family every December. They started off as crude drawings of Santa, but over the years they've radically subverted the genre. Some have been typographic collages. A few were photos and linocuts. Others are Photoshop mockups that place the recipient in a hilarious (or so I like to think) situation with their favourite celebrity. One year, I made a Christmas-themed crossword. They're all different, but the thing that unites them is my amateurish craftsmanship: I stick the cards together with staples and white-tack.
The picture is of a card I made a few years ago for my then girlfriend, Jess. It's the card I'm most proud of. I don't really like Christmas, but Jess loves it and that year she was keen that I get in the spirit. So she made me this incredible advent calendar, of sorts, which basically involved her posting me a new bit of vintage kitsch each day until Christmas. I was very touched, and wanted to reciprocate with my most ambitious card yet. I'd been mulling over making a three-dimensional card for a while. Then one day I ! was walk ing through a museum, and in one of the exhibits was this quite impressive diorama. And it hit me: I'll make one of those!
Handily, I had a large, black, diorama-shaped box lying around. I also had some red card, which I lined the box with, and some white card, from which I cut some stylised holly leaves. I wanted to give the viewer the impression of looking through a dense forest of holly.
It took about a day to make. I drew nearly 100 leaves before I got the shapes I wanted. Several times, the whole thing collapsed so I buttressed each leaf with another strip of red card. Over time, like the relationship, it sagged. But here you can see it in all its newly made glory, and it still brings back wonderful memories of my favourite Christmas ever.
Sharon Horgan: None of us had ever cooked a proper dinner, so the meal was revolting
It was the early 90s, I was 21 years old, and I was squatting in a flat on the 18th floor of a tower block in north London. My boyfriend, Mic, and I had only been in London for a few months. We were very poor. We had two ferry tickets to get us back to Ireland for Christmas, but we realised we didn't have any money to survive on. So we sold the tickets to another guy just to get us through Christmas.
We spent the day itself sitting in the squat, smoking bongs. There were only three of us me, Mic and my friend Helen. It was my first Christmas away from my family, and it was a bit grim. Mic put a bit of tinsel around the bong, so at least it was a little bit festive.
We were all vegans so we went to the local health food store and bought some really horrible nut roast ingredients. When you're on the 18th floor of a tower block, you get a lot of cockroaches. We went into the kitchen and turned on the light, and there was this horrible scurrying of tiny cockroach feet. We made our Christmas dinner there while my boyfriend was in the other room, preparing festive bongs.
None of us had ever really cooked anything resembling a proper! dinner, so the meal was revolting. We didn't even have any plates, so we ate it off saucers. We were only able to eat it because we'd smoked so much. It was in the days before mobile phones, so I remember running out to the local phone box and calling my parents. I tried to make it sound great. I told them: "I'm in my flat in London and we're living it up!"
It was probably my worst Christmas Day. But we had a lot of freedom. At the end of the night, all of the other stragglers who hadn't made it back to Ireland came round for yet another festive bong. There were no presents, but it was very sweet. We were trying to make the best of what we had.
(As told to Patrick Kingsley.)
Tom Watson: I volunteered to work in a byelection to avoid being sacked by Peter Mandelson
John Major had bottled out of calling a by-election in late 1996, leaving the good people of Wirral South without an MP for Christmas.
I volunteered for the by-election to avoid being sacked by Peter Mandelson. My humiliation at being on Peter's Millbank kill-list gave great pleasure to a number of people in Labour HQ who used the absence as an opportunity to convert my desk into a plant pot for the head office Christmas tree. It felt like I was in exile.
The campaign centre was an old Kwik Save shop in Bebington. It wasn't heated. For much of the day, you could see your own breath. The hours were long, the nightlife was bleak. My digs were a 13-a-night B&B in Birkenhead.
My job was to open up the shop in the darkness of the early morning. On Christmas Eve the heavy metal shutters were so frozen that my fingertips stuck to the base. If my tear ducts weren't frozen I'd have cried. I did cry later in the day when a local heroin addict broke into my car and stole all the Christmas presents. We won the by-election. I didn't send Peter a card.
Sarah Phillips: My drink got spiked and I spent Boxing Day being sick every half hour
The summer before my final year of university, my g! randma d ied. So we decided to take Grandad on holiday that Christmas to cheer him up. Fancying a bit of winter sun, we opted for a package deal to Gran Canaria. Unfortunately our hotel was filled with Brits intent on avoiding the festivities, and as a family who have always revelled in this time of year, we weren't enamoured by the idea of opting out. Although Grandad didn't exactly feel like celebrating, I think he would have been far happier at home, watching the TV specials, surrounded by my grandma's things.
On Christmas Eve we visited a neighbouring resort, its tourist shops and amusement arcades. Grandad wasn't feeling too good, and reacted badly when a clown appeared before us and tried to make him laugh. We sat in silence during the cab ride back, until a song played at my grandma's funeral came on the radio: at least half of the car sobbed the rest of the journey.
The next day everyone put on a brave face, but as the clouds came out, the novelty of lying around a pool at Christmas quickly wore off. I was even sad to miss the Queen's speech.
After a buffet dinner that was a pale imitation of our traditional feast at home, we decided to hit a bar to lift our spirits. And then my drink got spiked. On Christmas Day. I blacked out in the bathroom and spent Boxing Day being sick every half-hour. It sounds terrible, but I think back to it fondly because it was the last Christmas I spent with Grandad before he died.
Jon Henley: My son was always an early riser. He opened his presents at 3.45am
This is my son Nathan, aged nearly three, in my sister's living room in Stratford-on-Avon on 25 December 2003. It is 3.45am. As you can see, he is having a great Christmas. We were not. We were living in Paris at the time and were back in Britain for 10 days to see assorted friends and relatives and show off Nathan's new sister, Madeleine. The mistake was seeing too many: five or six different families around the country, which meant we were sleeping in a different house every other nig! ht. This did not do the boy's sleep already perturbed by the hour's time difference any good. And he was an early riser at the best of times; 6.30 if you were lucky. So each day of that holiday, Nathan woke up half an hour earlier than the day before. By the time we got to Christmas it was at 3.45am, and we were half dead. Inevitably, on the way home snow delayed the Eurostar by five hours. We finally got into Paris at 2.30am. We hauled ourselves up at 8am, dumped both kids at the creche at 9am, went straight back to bed and slept until four in the afternoon. A festive nightmare, from start to finish.
Hope Powell: We went to Jamaica for six weeks, which, to an 11-year-old, felt like six years
When I was 11, I went on a plane for the first time to go to Jamaica for Christmas. It is where my parents are from, so I met all of my extended family who I'd heard so much about. My mum is one of nine and my dad is one of eight, so I walked into this world of hundreds of relatives. A lot of my cousins were around the same age, and it was great knowing that you shared a family connection.
We went for six weeks, which, to an 11-year-old, felt like six years. It was a completely different environment: very hot and lots of open space. Christmas is much the same out there. It's only the food and weather that are different. We ate traditional West Indian food rice and peas, chicken and fish but that's what I grew up with in England. As a child we always had a West Indian and English theme for Christmas, and still do so two dinners every year, which is great. I didn't miss an English Christmas. For me this time of year is about being with your family, so to have all of my relatives around me was pretty special.
(As told to Sarah Phillips)
Jennifer Ehle: I'm generally wearing a nightie and an apron forChristmas dinner
This is from Christmas 2008, at our home in upstate New York. It was such an exciting time. I was seven months pregnant with our second child, Talulah. C! hristmas is such an extraordinary time to be in a family, especially when you have young children. As a group, you're under so much change and expansion. You're so aware of the differences, from one year to the next. This year, we knew that it was our last Christmas with the family as it was.
It must have been Christmas Eve. There's a glass of wine there on the table. My husband would only have been drinking that if my parents had arrived, and they usually arrive the day before Christmas. They would have been with our son, George, by the tree in the living room, which is off to camera right. I'm reading a recipe on the computer. I always keep them there. If I print something out, I just spend all my time trying to find where I've put it down. It looks like I'm talking, but I'm just mumbling the recipe to myself, prepping for the onslaught of Christmas day. I tend to do that, to nail the steps into my brain. I have no idea what I was cooking, but I'm rather surprised the kitchen is quite such a mess. That's the table we eat at!
In 42 years, I've spent all but two Christmases with my parents. It's never stressful. We spend quite a lot of time together as a family, so maybe we get the stress out at more appropriate times. I certainly try to emulate the wonderful Christmases they gave us, though mine are a little more chaotic. We used to dress up at my parents' house for Christmas dinner, but these days I'm generally still wearing a nightie and an apron.
(As told to Patrick Kingsley)
Stewart Lee: I realised Father Christmas wouldn't be subcontracting model castles to carpenters
Christmas 1972. My mother and I lived at my grandparents', and my grandad had had a stroke. I wanted Father Christmas to bring me a castle for Christmas. I did not realise this was essentially asking my cash-strapped mother for an extra and expensive gift. But Father Christmas delivered the castle, and it was waiting in the morning. Working portcullis. Raised ramparts. Perfect. We lived next door to ! an old S cottish carpenter with bad eyesight, and budgies. "Go next door and thank Mr Archer for making your castle," said my grandad. "I thought Father Christmas made it?" I said. My grandad hastily concocted a cover. "He did. But Mr Archer helped him with it." I was only four, but I realised that if there was a Father Christmas, he wouldn't be subcontracting castles to Scottish carpenters. He had elves for that. Ever since, I've been an atheist sceptic, but I never lacked a sense of wonder. What is more inspiring, the flying sled gift man and the barn-born baby, or the retired carpenter, knocking together a handmade a castle for the boy of the divorcee next door? Last Christmas I unboxed it, and gave it to my son.
Comments