Here's what has these famous faces rockin’ around the Christmas tree
It won’t be long before we have our Christmas playlists on repeat. talks to four high-profile people about their festive traditions and favourite tracks.
Ellen Keane
Every Christmas, Ellen takes a short break from training to spend time with her family.
“My family loves Christmas. For me, it’s the only time of the year that I get a little bit of time off so I really treasure it. Even though I love the break, I get major itchy feet and find it really hard to sit still. To combat this, for the past few years I have been the one making Christmas dinner. I did a culinary degree, and I love having a special tradition of my own on Christmas Day.
“I enjoy planning it, and I like everything to be perfect. My Mum likes eating pork at Christmas and I still cook turkey, even though I don’t think any of us really eat it. My sister is obsessed withcroquettes, and her plate on the day is just full of them. For dessert, we have sticky toffee pudding and we Christmas pudding too, of course. It’s a big feast day for us.
Santa still comes to our house, even though we are all grown up — I have twin brothers aged 26, and my sister is 31 years old
“On Christmas morning, my Mam will wake us up to see what Santa has brought us. We all have to go downstairs together and Santa will have left big sacks of gifts with all our names on them. We open the gifts one at a time, showing them off as we go.
“Music really puts me in the Christmas spirit.
“My favourite festive song is ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham. I don’t even know why I love it — it is actually a really depressing song when you listen to the lyrics but it makes me so happy every time I hear it.”
Keith Cunningham
The anchor of 96FM’s KC & Ross In The Morning likes to roll up his sleeves in the kitchen on Christmas Day.
“Last year, we had the whole travelling circus around at our place for Christmas dinner and I was responsible for all of the cooking which was terrifying. I had a good week of planning and a lot of help from Jamie Oliver. It is so handy being able to cook along with a chef on the iPad. We had about 12 people and nobody died, and I call this the most successful Christmas dinner ever.
“I have three little munchkins at home and Christmas is so much better with kids around. They are pretty good in the sense that they wake up between six and seven.
“We had an incident last year where there were some false alarms and people heard reindeers on the roof in the middle of the night. When we explained that Santa doesn’t arrive until about 5am, it was all OK.
“Christmas is the best time to take off in the land of radio,because our jobs run by ratings. From about the 15th of December, there is nobody out there measuring ratings, so the powers that be tell those of us with regular daytime shows to go away for a few weeks over Christmas and nobody argues with them. The Super Team comes in and covers for the rest of us.
“There are two songs that put me in the Christmas spirit instantly.
“On the show, our Christmas song is ‘Dominic The Donkey’ by Lou Monte and, in my opinion, it is the greatest Christmas song of all time. It’s about a little Italian donkey who we think may have been in the mafia. Every time we play it, we get such a huge reaction to it.
“From a standard Christmasplaylist, there are really just 20 massive Christmas hits that just get replayed to death, but there are lots of other great songs out there, and it’s good to remind people of that.
“The one I love personally and which always triggers a festive state of mind is Paul McCartney’s ‘Frog Chorus’.
“I don’t think it was ever intended to be a Christmas song but adore it. It is five minutes long and you don’t hear it on radio any more.
“As a child, it was always[played] at Christmas — it’s a mad and amazing piece of music.”
Sara Ryan
Sara will be taking time out from promoting her debut album Breathe to spend time with her family this Christmas.
“I’m originally from Kildare but Cork is my home now. My parents moved to Clare a few years ago and we had Christmas there last year, which was wonderful. We all jumped into the sea together on Christmas morning and it was incredible. There were loads of people down at the beach, all jumping into the sea. It was the best way to start the day.
We are a very close family and we really appreciate and make the most of spending time together at Christmas. We are not big on major gifts, we are more inclined to buy smaller, more thoughtful presents and focus on spending time together
“This year, we are heading to my brother’s house because he has a new baby and I can’t wait.
“When you are a performer, you often find yourself working during the Christmas period, but this year I am lucky to have a few days off. I’m looking forward to soaking up that festive atmosphere and hanging out with the people I love.
“Music really evokes that festive spirit. To me, there is no greater song than ‘Fairytale of New York’. Shane MacGowan is one of the most amazing songwriters ever; this song moves me every time I hear it, even though I have heard it a million times.
“Of course, Kirsty MacColl was one of the greatest singers, and her voice transports me whenever I hear it.”
Catherine Ryan Howard
Catherine puts deadlines aside during the festive season to bake cupcakes for her close friends and family.
“We are all at home in Cork at Christmas. There are five of us and the baby of the family is 30 years old, but we are all home together on Christmas Day. I love it.
“We have a very quiet day — we don’t do anything crazy.
We get up and I make coffee for everyone. Once caffeinated, we open our presents, and after dinner, we vegetate for the rest of the day
“I love Christmas Eve. I am an atheist. My sister is in the pub and my brother, mother and father go to Mass and I have the house to myself. I just love that hour or two where I can sit down, the tree is glowing, the fire is lighting and I can have a glass of wine to myself and soak it all up.
“I don’t take much time off over the Christmas period. I much prefer to have time off before the day itself, meeting up with friends and getting caught up in the festiveness of it all.
“I am very happy to go back to work on St Stephen’s Day — I don’t enjoy those days between Christmas and New Year.
“Every year, in the run-up to Christmas, I open my cupcake factory. I make red velvet cupcakes, which I box up and give to family and friends.
“While I’m baking them, I love to listen to ‘Underneath The Tree’ by Kelly Clarkson.
“I recommend this song to anyone who loves Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ but can’t bear to listen to it one more time.
“My favourite Christmas single is ‘Carol of The Bells’, and it has to be performed by a choir. I don’t like any of these acapella arrangements, it must be a choir.
“Of course, it reminds me of Home Alone, which is a massive movie in our family and is the one film that we will all happily watch together, year in and year out.”
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