A CRACKING Christmas!

EMMA ATKINS and SALLY ANN MATTHEWS AKA Emmerdale and Coronation Street landladies Charity Dingle and Jenny Connor chat to 7V Times about their festive celebrations, onand off-screen...

- ALISON SLADE

ITV1 soaps Coronation Street and Emmerdale are filmed weeks in advance, so does Christmas feel extra long because you have a TV one, then the real one?

SALLY ANN It does! The decorations are down on set before you've put up your own... which can be handy, because if you want something, you might be able to borrow it.

When I was in Emmerdale [Sally Ann played Sandra Briggs from 2005 to 2006], I was in charge of decorating the grotto at my kids' school, so I had a load of stuff from the props store. We had a very sparkly grotto that year, courtesy of Emmerdale!

EMMA I've never taken anything, but that's got me thinking! I actually walked on to set a few weeks ago and saw everything decorated, and said, 'What's going on?" Everyone was like, 'Er, it's Christmas. It felt so weird because in the real world, we were nowhere near Christmas.

Is there a different atmosphere on set when you film Christmas scenes?

SALLY ANN New Year's Eve feels like that, definitely, and this year has been really nice because it's the first year since COVID-19 that we've had lots of people in the Rovers - we had around 33 cast members in one scene.

EMMA Sally Ann's absolutely right. When everyone is en masse, it is the most fantastic day, and the camaraderie is beautiful.

What will Jenny and Charity's Christmases be like?

SALLY ANN Christmas isn't what Jenny expected, given Leo's 'disappearance'. She's a bit humiliated that he's gone and rejected her, but she's getting attention from Stephen, and she's got Daisy to fuss over. She's rocking a holly headband, so all can't be too bad!