Life & Style

Ian Dempsey’s Christmas: ‘This year material displays will be less important. Hallelujah to that’

‘I reckon people will embrace a simpler but really good Christmas,’ says the Today FM DJ

Ian Dempsey: ‘I reckon people will embrace a simpler Christmas but a really good one’

Arlene Harris's face
Arlene Harris
Tue Dec 14 2021 - 00:00

What will you be doing at Christmas?
We always book a restaurant for Christmas Eve afternoon, to get the season started in style – somewhere Chinese or Indian, where the food is far away from turkey and ham.

Thankfully all the family is still around for Christmas 2021, so we will get to see everybody. I normally visit my parents late Christmas morning, and usually my brother and sisters are there as well.

We try to clean ourselves up a bit for the day that’s in it, and after a hearty Christmas breakfast, and a bit of present swapping, at about 4pm our Christmas-dinner guests arrive. My wife Ger’s parents and siblings will sit around the dinner table with crackers, always supplied by my mother-in-law. The jokes inside are hilariously bad, but you do make allowances on Christmas Day.

Everything is always beautiful. There is more present swapping at this stage, and we have a few drinks, nibbles and a chat. Dinner is at about 6pm, and it’s a real feast – looks amazing and tastes superb. We all do our bit, but Ger is the main woman every year – and she is the best. I think you need to be more than just a great cook for Christmas Day, as you also need to be a scientist, mathematician and engineer, because there are so many things that can go wrong or get mistimed.

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We love hosting Christmas Day and plan well ahead, so it always looks very Christmassy – with lights, candles, trees (one in the front window and one in the back every year, as my daughter wanted a real one and we didn’t want the artificial one to go to waste). And I usually plan a good festive playlist to have on in the background as well.

Everybody puts in a big effort to make it a great day, and we all dress up and look our best. Christmas Day is the target, and once we move to St Stephen’s Day the last thing I want to hear is Slade, Shakin’ Stevens or The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. I’m then officially looking forward to the new year.

What's on your wish list?
This year I'm hoping to add to my speaker collection, and I think I just may have sent out enough hints at this stage. But, like every child, I'm still very fond of the "surprise" on Christmas morning.

Will it be a different Christmas?
I reckon people will embrace a simpler Christmas but a really good one. I think a lot of the unnecessary material displays will be less important to many people this year, and hallelujah to that.

Christmas