It’s Christmas all year round for festive family

They are the ultimate Christmas family with Christmas memories that last the whole year.

A family in Louth have been blessed with what must be the best surname for this time of year: Christmas.

Herbie, 80, and his wife Mary — making her Mary Christmas — live on the family farm in Rathcor, Co Louth.

Their daughter Heather is so proud to be born into a real-life Christmas family that she kept her maiden name when she married and her three children also use it as their surname.

“Every tree in our garden is a Christmas tree and every drink we have throughout the year is a Christmas spirit,” joked Heather Christmas, 41.

One of the running jokes in the family is that they might take up rearing reindeer on their farm.

Herbie said: “I was stopped by the gardaí at a checkpoint one Christmas week many years ago. The garda asked me my name and I said Christmas. He asked me ‘are you trying to make a fool out of me?’ but I wasn’t.”

Herbie, who also drove a school bus before he retired, dressed up as Santa Claus one year to entertain the students.

“The kids loved it,” he said.

Herbie, his wife Mary, 87, as well as Heather and their son Freddie have great memories of Christmas time.

“Mary and I have spent 44 wonderful Christmases here, we always had wonderful, happy times here together.”

Heather and her daughter Rachel, 20, love the fact their home “is an open house at Christmas time. Everyone comes home and are fed and watered and the Spirit of Christmas is here the whole year round”.

Heather has collated a detailed family (Christmas) tree and can trace their roots in Ireland with the arrival in 1827 from Middlesex, England, of William Muir Christmas.

He worked as a land steward for Lewis Upton of Glyde Farm in Ardee, Co Louth.

He and his wife had 10 children, three of whom were born in Louth and subsequent generations settled in the Dundalk and Carlingford areas of Louth.

Heather says there is a plaque in Waterford to two former mayors who were brothers — Richard and Thomas Christmas — but believes her family is the only Irish Christmas family.