RACHEL ALLEN

Chef, pictured with her daughter, Scarlett, and husband, Isaac

With Santa Claus and all the excitement, we wake up very early and have a look at what he brought and we open other presents then, too. We make a great big breakfast to keep us going for the day as we usually eat late in the afternoon. I light all the candles, I make it all cosy in the morning — I just love it! After breakfast, we'll either visit friends or friends will come to us — we have sort of an open-house type thing. There'll be drinks and I'll make pate, and there'll be nibbles like smoked salmon and various canapes.

For the big dinner, a lot of the prepping is done on Christmas Eve, like the stuffing and things. We're eating in our house this year with just myself, Isaac and the kids. There's always a great big dinner with all the Allens in Ballymaloe but we'll be joining them later. It's the only time of year that there are no guests there and the grandchildren are allowed into the kitchens to get the silver trays and slide down the banisters on them. We'll all gather in the drawing room and play games like Whacker with rolled-up newspaper, everyone swaps presents, and it just turns into an evening thing then.

We get the Christmas tree from our local greengrocer and the two boys, who are 10 and 13, come along and help choose it and inevitably it turns into a “that one, no that one” scenario. We get a really big one, decorate it early in December and I can't get enough lights. I put fairy lights everywhere. I always try to make the most of Christmas. ‘Rachel Allen's Cake Diaries’ will continue on January 2 on RTE One at 8.30pm. ‘Bake’ by Rachel Allen, published by Collins, €33 Rachel’s make-up by Seana Long using Kohl; hair by Jennifer Lil Buckley, both at Brown Sugar, 50 Sth William St, D2, tel: (01) 616-9967