GARY BARLOW ‘I’ll brine my turkey to make it special!’

Singer Gary likes to keep things traditional at Christmas

My earliest Christmas memories are of my Nan coming to stay. My brother and I had to share a bed with her and it would be a race to get to sleep before her. If you didn’t, you’d never get to sleep because her snoring was like an earthquake!

My favourite celebrations have been those with the kids. A few years back, we all went to a hotel – grandparents, brothers and sisters, too. It was great to have a big Christmas... and for someone else to wash up!

Our youngest, Daisy, is 11 now, so things are quite civilised. I’m first up at 6.30am; I walk the dogs, then put the turkey in, before we do presents around the tree. Lunch is always at 1pm (ish!), but if I start drinking then, I’m in bed by 6.30pm, so I wait until the evening. We’ll walk the dogs in the afternoon, then watch TV with supper. Then the red wine comes out…

This year, we’ll be spending Christmas at home. We’ll have grandparents to stay, if we can, and keep it quite traditional. To make it extra special, I’m going to brine my turkey – I did it with a chicken recently and it was superb! We might go to the pub for supper on Christmas Eve, too.

I am always nervous about releasing new songs. Before Covid struck, I recorded a new album, which is out this month. It was so much fun to make. My favourite song is a track called This Is My Time. It’s just piano and a small chamber band.

My hopes for 2021 are to have a nice 50th birthday. When life gets back to ‘normal’, I’m going to try to appreciate all the things we’ve not been able to do: travelling, playing gigs, watching football.

MY CHRISTMAS WISH… I hope that we can all play live safely next year.

• Gary’s new album, Music Played By Humans, is out 27 November