OTI MABUSE ‘It will feel more meaningful this year’

Strictly pro Oti aims to find the joy in everything

Christmas has always been about family.

Growing up in Pretoria, South Africa, I spent Christmas with my parents, my two sisters, and my extended family: grandma, aunts and cousins. We’d eat, laugh and play music really loudly, all singing along. It felt like a big festival.

Food is a huge part of my Christmas.

Everybody cooks too much, and my family all bring different dishes along. There’s a lot of South African cuisine, including chakalaka [a vegetable dish], rice salads, peas and beans, beetroot and lots of meat. We eat it for days afterwards!

It’s more bikinis and cocktails than snow and cold. The sun is out and we’re barbecuing, and we often go to the beach. I’ve been used to experiencing a summer Christmas, where we spend it outside.

Last year, I spent my first Christmas in England. For my husband Marius and I, it was the first Christmas in our new home in London, so we decided it would just be the two of us. We swapped presents and decorated the house, and Marius bought a grey artificial Christmas tree, which was interesting…

Christmas will feel more meaningful this year. My family haven’t been all together since the Christmas before last, and my parents had to cancel a visit to us here in the UK due to the pandemic, so I’m looking forward to our reunion. I’ll appreciate my family more than ever.

I’m looking forward to my first ever UK tour next year. To be the first female Strictly pro to have her own headlining tour, while still being in the show, feels like a huge accomplishment. I want to make it as big and wild as possible, but also for people to get to know me a little more and learn about my journey. I can’t wait to travel around the UK next year, meeting people and discovering places.

MY CHRISTMAS WISH… Back in the day, it would have been something like ‘more shoes’, but this year it’s more of a feeling. I aim to find joy in everything.

• Tickets for Oti Mabuse’s 2021 tour, I Am Here, are on sale at otimabuse.com. Strictly Come Dancing is on Saturdays and Sundays on BBC One