Prue’s recipe for a fabulous family Christmas

Treat your loved ones to a bespoke tree, home-made decorations and some good old-fashioned party games, says Prue Leith in the final part of our sumptuous series

My mum always insisted I plan things so that Christmas dinner was over in time to watch the Queen’s speech. That worked for years, but as the children grew older they became less biddable. And then when my mother died, somehow the tradition got lost. But I always felt guilty about it, feeling it was somehow rude not to listen to the monarch, who wisely doesn’t talk to us too much, when she does have something to say. This year I will once again get us round the TV at 3pm. I suspect that with her popularity so high and the national nervousness that there may not be too many Queen’s speeches yet to come, many more will turn on the telly this year.

My childhood Christmases were odd, though of course they seemed normal to me. We lived in Johannesburg, so Christmas was celebrated in the blazing heat of the African summer. But we were of Scottish extraction (my grandparents talked of the UK as ‘home’ although they’d lived in South Africa for 50-odd years) and we ate turkey and plum pudding,

FOR YEARS I BELIEVED BRUSSELS SPROUTS WERE DISGUSTING

mince pies and brandy butter, followed by port, chocolates and candied fruits, just like all the other expats. Brussels sprouts didn’t grow in South Africa, so my mother bought them in tins. For years I believed sprouts were totally disgusting: slimy, grey, mushy and bitter. Today I love them – modern breeds are sweet, not bitter, and when lightly cooked they’re delicious.

Lacking fir trees, we turned our apple tree in the garden into a Christmas tree and decorated it with cotton wool snow and paper chains. My father, sweating under a thick, red dressing gown, beard and woolly hat, distributed presents and cash bonuses to our nanny, cook and gardener from under the tree.

Another tradition that has long disappeared was the Company Children’s Party. My dad worked for a global firm and the children of the head office staff were invited to the Johannesburg headquarters where there would be organised games for an hour or so, after which we’d all sit down to a proper tea with orange squash, cake and jelly. And crackers and streamers. Before we went home Santa would hand each of us a seriously nice toy. One year there was a locomotive and tender that ran on methylated spirit for my brother, and a doll that weed for me. She came with a little bottle which you pushed into her mouth to feed her. Then, if you pressed her tummy, she’d pee.

We didn’t have stockings hanging on the mantelpiece, but we had a pillowcase at the end of the bed containing one, or

perhaps two, presents from our parents and then minor ones from relatives or siblings. My elder brother and I shared

a bedroom and year after year we would try to stay awake to see Father Christmas come to fill our pillowcases. One year our cunning plan was to tie a string from the pillowcase to our big toes, in the belief that the pillowcase being filled would wake us. Didn’t work.

I remember the disappointment of feeling the shape of the pillowcase’s contents, hoping for the longed-for teddy bear or doll, and realising it was a book or a jumper or something boring like that. I wasn’t a scrap interested in clothes and though I liked reading well enough, I always had pretty unrealistic hopes for Christmas: a pony, a puppy, a bicycle, a Wendy house.

Christmas 70 years ago was a much simpler affair, though I think modern children are just as happy and excited as we were. I would recommend stashing a few

I ALWAYS HAD UNREALISTIC HOPES, FOR A PONY OR PUPPY OR A BICYCLE

of their too-many presents away for a future rainy day.

The traditional Christmas dinner might be on the wane, I think. Even in my day we occasionally abandoned it. One year we had Chinese Pancakes and everyone rolled their own, filling them with roast duck, cucumber strips and hoisin sauce. We all loved it. But mostly we had a roast: usually turkey, but sometimes beef, pork or goose.

Today many of the young (to me anyone under 60 is a spring chicken) are changing their diets, eating more veg, buying locally and sustainably, and generally making vegan food mainstream. It’s a really welcome move. If the National Food Strategy recommendations are acted upon, in ten years we will be eating 30 per cent less meat than now, but it will be better quality, more sustainable, more local, possibly organic.

Though for years I’ve been an enthusiastic veg eater (and cook), I couldn’t imagine doing without milk, cream, butter or eggs. Vegan substitutes, except maybe margarine, were either absent or disgusting. But now mock egg, vegan cheese, vegetable shortening and half a dozen nut milks are sold in supermarkets, and best of all vegan

puff pastry is available in ready

made blocks.

Most recip es will convert to vegan. Even if you want to make a curry or a casserole and miss the texture and substantial form of meat, you can use seitan, Quorn or tofu for the protein chunks.

It being Christmas, you need a showstopper centrepiece like a turkey or roast. How to do that for yourveganguests?well,youcould serve a Mushroom Wellington. Make a savoury mix of fried mushrooms, onions, garlic and parsley, well cooked down and thick. If you don’t like mushrooms, make a thick stew of root veg, butternut squash and lots of onions. Use this for a filling for a family-size fat sausage roll using vegan puff pastry, glaze it lightly with melted coconut oil (egg-wash being a no-no for vegans), bake until brown and garnish with a bit of jolly holly in it. Job done. But Christmas is not all about food, is it? For me there’s pleasure and excitement in decking the halls (well, house) too. We used to make our own Christmas decorations, particularly cardboard cutout horses, Christmas trees, angels and bells for the tree. Best of all is the angel on the top of the tree. She (I know angels are male, but ours is definitely a girl) has a ping pong ball head attached with a pipe cleaner to her cardboard skirt, is covered in gold foil and adorned with pink wings.

I think modern children love making decorations just as much as the children of 40 years ago did. If you lay on some simple materials, like foil, thin cardboard, paper, pipe cleaners, glitter and glue, there are dozens of workshops online to show you how. Just fold

ing strips of crepe paper to make old-fashioned paper chains can be satisfying and a lot of fun.

I really enjoy arranging flowers and at Christmas I tend to put large armfuls of greenery, mostly my old friend holly, into big buckets. I then

spice them up with fake berries or flowers, or home-made carnations made out of red crepe paper. Or sometimes I’ll spray half of them silver, leaving the other half green, and then add a few bits of tinsel.

Most people of my age long for

their grandchildren to have a more hands-on Christmas, being involved with the cooking and preparation and not spending most of their time on their phones. I wonder if we could bring back family games too, especially the kind that don’t need

anything more complicated or expensive than pencil and paper. Charades, hide and seek, musical chairs, consequences. It helps if someone in the family is a natural cheerleader or bossyboots and will be the Mistress or Master of the Revels, knowing the rules of the games and able to explain them, and making sure any necessary kit is to hand.

When the children are finally out of puff from playing sardines or blind man’s buff, a few sitting-down board games might be a good idea. Of course, there are hundreds of new games on the market, a lot of them so cheaply made as not to outlast Christmas. But then, who nowadays keeps such things anyway? How many families have room for a

‘games cupboard’ of old jigsaws (usually with a maddening missing piece) and board games? We had one for 45 years, but apart from Scrabble and Monopoly few were ever brought out twice.

My grandchildren love Pie Face. It’s a sort of Russian Roulette in which, if you make the wrong choice, you get your face splattered with whipped cream. Yes, it’s infantile, messy and wasteful. But somehow it’s enormous fun.

My final piece of advice is, if at all possible, get outside for at least an hour or so. Even if there are no new trikes or skateboards or kites to put through their paces, a deep gulp or two of good fresh air works wonders.

GET OUTSIDE FOR AT LEAST AN HOUR – A GULP OF FRESH AIR WORKS WONDERS