Amy Huberman: Brian is such a good cook, I called him ‘Brine’ O'Driscoll for most of December
From singing at Christmas Mass to the excitement of finding that perfect surprise from Santa under the tree, some of Ireland's favourite celebrities reveal what Christmas is like for them.
Christmas Day for us has changed, last year was the first time that we didn't go and sponge off other people’s food. We cooked and had my mom and my brothers over so that was really nice. I was probably in labour, because I had what I thought was massive indigestion. I went into labour on the night of the 27th and I had Ted on the 28th.
Brian cooked Christmas dinner while I lay around making whale noises on the couch, asking ‘when’s dinner ready?’ He is such a good cook. He's a man who likes to do things right with carrots on Christmas Day, which is great. It was our first time properly hosting and he was amazing. I was calling him ‘Brine’ O'Driscoll for most of December because I felt like ‘brining the turkey’ took up a lot of our conversation. He just heard me talking about the Christmas dinner now, Brian are you cooking Christmas dinner? [“This year and every year” he can be hard replying in the distance].
The presents that stick out in my head were always the Santa surprises and the best one I remember was a Care Bear Cousin, it was Swift Heart. He was the blue rabbit that had the red heart on its chest. It was the love of my life for three or four years and I had a big ceremony of handing them over and bequeathing them to my own kids. I still have Swift Heart, I have him here. That was my peak surprise from Santa. That was my favourite toy ever.
Christmas is a time, even yet, when everything just shuts down and you just go into your own circle. We'll be in Donegal with Siobhan and her husband Gavin and their three children: Olivia, Archie and the baby. We had a wee grandson born on the seventh of October. So they’ll come and their cat and the dog, the whole lot. We don't have cats or dogs but Charlie and Candy will arrive for Christmas. Majella’s mother will be there and Kathleen and John, they love close. The wee ones, when Santa comes, there’s so much excitement: leaving out the carrot for the reindeer and the milk and mince pie for Santa.
I don't cook at any time of year, never mind Christmas. Majella would do the cooking and Siobhan's husband, they’ll do it between them. I'll be washing up while they're making a mess. We always have the turkey. Majella does a plum pudding, she does it with brandy butter.
From a very young age, Christmas was centered around going to Mass and singing in the choir. That was a big part of Christmas for me. Even yet, I love taking part and singing at the Mass. With the virus, you're not doing what you'd normally do. Generally the local variety group would sing in Dungloe on Christmas Eve and I would always join them and they’d gather money for a local charity. I would always go to the local hospital and myself and PJ, he was at school with me and was my best man, with his son and daughter we would sing at the Mass in the hospital on Christmas morning. Then after that, we’re at home watching all the films, lying back and enjoying it.
There were six kids in my family. My earliest Christmas memories are of myself and two of my sisters painstakingly writing our letters to Santy, which my Dad would then burn in the fireplace. As they burned he would encourage the burning ash of the letters to float up the chimney and out into the night where they would be magically whisked off to Santa who could read the ashes with his Santy magic.
Every year I asked Santy for a gorilla suit. The kind someone in a movie might end up wearing. It was always my number one ask. And every year my mother - in 1970s Mayo before you could get anything you wanted on the internet - would carefully nudge me to add "or a surprise" in case Santy couldn't get his hands on a gorilla suit like they have in the movies. And every year I got a surprise.
Every year before the lunch is ready, we visit the neighbouring family or they visit us for a few pre-lunch drinks and catch up with who's doing what and where and who is and isn't home this year. My Dad always took a couple of us with him to visit an old Traveller woman, a doughty matriarch who lived nearby, and bring a few gifts for her and her grandkids. This year I'll go down to Mayo to have Christmas with the family, most of whom still live there.
I never did get that gorilla suit…
Christmas morning as a child was such an amazing feeling. It started when I'd wake up and find my Christmas stocking filled at the end of my bed, then I’d wake up the whole house to go downstairs into the sitting room and open the Santa presents. I remember a Fisher-Price garage one year, then there were two real budgies (which didn't last long). The best of all was a Raleigh Blue Budgie bike which I can still picture to this day.
We had the same routine every year, which I loved. We all gathered around the tree early to open presents and then had a big fry up for breakfast. We would visit a friend’s house and come back for our family dinner. Christmas Day is all about family and food.
Christmas has come full circle as I have two young boys excited for the big day. We are in Cork this year and will have a similar day to when I was young. We will be exchanging presents early and then plan to visit my family and Debbie’s family. It will revolve around seeing loved ones and eating lots of food!
My earliest memory is of my siblings and I pestering my exhausted parents at 5am, then 6am, etc, until eventually we were allowed to go downstairs. We lined up in a row of seven outside the door in excited anticipation. My twin brother and I went in first as the youngest two. It was a really happy time, lots of love, gifts and time with family.
I can remember coming into the sitting room one year and scanning the plethora of gifts, looking for tickets to a show that I was hoping to get. My mother nudged me, told me not to forget to check my stocking and low and behold a ticket to see my first concert, Westlife. Westlife were the bee's knees back then, and the first concert I would have ever gone to. My parents always managed to figure out a way to make all five of us feel special. I find a gift that is an experience goes much farther, it creates a fonder memory.
It was our tradition every year to visit my grandmother’s house in Rathfarnham before we all had our own respective family dinners. You could barely fit in the house, every room jam-packed with cousins trying to show off their Christmas outfits and toys and the large pre-dinner spread that would literally feed dozens of us. It was always based around my grandmother. She is so missed but lives on in all of us in one way or another as we grow and expand with our own families.
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