TOP tables Winter foliage and berries from the garden make for a fabulous festive table

one is with me on these forays. My husband, Geordie, asks after the condition of the car bonnet…

Highclere’s dining room, hung in yellow silks, with huge important portraits, is very much a statement in itself so how to decorate it at Christmas time needs careful thought. Early in December I create an evergreen decoration on the mantelpiece that will last a month, set with cream pillar candles, bowls of artificial flowers and a garland of trailing ivy and pine cones. The table and sideboard will be decorated with fresh flowers and foliage so these must wait until just before Christmas or they will wilt.

At Christmas time, we also enjoy the glorious sweet scents of hyacinths and paperwhite narcissi, which we plant with care in the early autumn.

Christmas Day breakfast is scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, warming porridge, toast and copious cups of tea and coffee.

As the meal finishes, the house party slowly gears up to brave the cold morning air and the Christmas morning church service. Our day resumes after church with drinks in the saloon around the fire. As we are called in to lunch and take our places around the dining table, the delicious smells of turkey and assorted

The Highclere table, set for a feast dishes settle the children to the focused business of eating. The gleaming dining room table can hardly be seen under the piles of crackers, extravagant flowers and silver ornaments, a present in front of each place, immaculate napkins folded in the shape of a bishop’s mitre, a promising collection of glasses laid out as well as salt cellars and dishes of cranberry sauce. Table crackers have become an integral part of Christmas Day dining.

Once lunch has been eaten, crackers pulled and toasts made, we abandon the dining room — the table covered in paper hats, wrapping paper, empty plates and mostly drunk wine — and retire to my messy study.