'I start planning Christmas in August'

As mum to a dozen children, Zoe Sullivan, 45, finds the festive season pretty hectic, but it's also her favourite time of year

- JANET TANSLEY

The countdown to Christmas is on… and if you’re starting to panic about a to-do list as long as your arm, then spare a thought for Zoe Sullivan. With 12 children to buy for and a family of 14 to feed, Christmas is little short of a military operation. Think 12 stockings, mountains of wrapping paper and enough food to feed a small army!

“Every year, I say I’ll start planning earlier, and I never do,” says Zoe. “There are days when I get stressed, and days when I reckon I’ve got everything under control. But I always manage to bring it together.”

Like most mums, it isn’t the lure of shiny-wrapped trinkets under the tree that makes Christmas so special for the family.

“While it might sound cheesy,” says Zoe, “Christmas really is the most special time for us. It’s a chance to shut the door on everything and everyone and spend it in our own little bubble, without all the pressures of everyday life. I love it. We all do.”

Zoe, 45, and husband Ben, 48, a former RAF serviceman who now works in the aviation industry, didn’t plan to have lots of children. “It’s not something we ever discussed, it just happened,” says Zoe, shaking her head and smiling at the chaos of family life. “But we really love children. We had our two eldest within 18 months of each other and then there were the twins; and once you’ve got four children, it gets easier from then on.”

The Sullivan siblings are Elisabeth, 18, Olivia, 17, Charlotte and Isabelle, 15, Noah, 13, Eva, 12, Toby, 10, Leah and Erin, seven, Agnes, six, Joseph, five, and Florence, who’s the baby at 19 months.