‘My Perfect Festive Treat'

Broadcaster and writer Kate Humble tells Yours why she prefers to celebrate Christmas in her own unique way

- Alison James

Kate Humble is a merry soul but it has to be said that she’s not very ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’ when it comes Christmas. In fact, there’s even a faint groan when we bring up the subject of seasonal festivities.

“I don’t really ‘do’ Christmas,” she says. “In fact, I will go so far as to confess that it is my least favourite time of year. It is wasteful, stressful and horribly expensive. It’s a time of year dominated by truly awful songs on the radio, tat in the shops and the buying and stockpiling of food as if a war were imminent. Before we moved to Wales, my husband Ludo and I would go away, shouldering our rucksacks and heading off before the huge hike in airline prices, returning when the fairy lights were jammed back in a hopeless tangle in their boxes and the New Year detox had started.”

As owners of a smallholding, it is now impossible for Kate and Ludo to flee the country in early December because of their animals but she reveals that they have an alternative which they love just as much – if not more.

“Instead of spending the few precious hours of daylight there are on December 25th by preparing the marathon that is the Christmas meal, for the past few years we’ve packed up our camper van with our three dogs– and anyone else who can’t quite stand another re-run of Only Fools and Horses and has an aversion to Christmas pudding – and we head for the beach, specifically the Gower peninsula.