'MY SON SAYS I CAN'T BOIL IN EGG, SO I'LL DO THE PEELING AND CHOPPING'

After her first series as Strictly head judge, Shirley Ballas is planning to enjoy her mum’s home cooking

It was a December day when my brother died, so for many years it was not a month I looked forward to. I haven’t put up a Christmas tree since. But this year, my mum and I have decided we are going to do it.

Strictly finishes just before Christmas Day and by then I’ll be looking forward to some downtime. Family is very special to me and this has been the longest gap since I’ve seen them.

I am hoping my mum and I will hop on a plane to America if she’s feeling fit, as she loves to spend Christmas with my son Mark, who is a professional

dancer on Dancing With The

Stars, the US version of Strictly. Mum is 80, so if she isn’t feeling fit, we’ll have Christmas at her house in Wallasey. We’ll do our own roast dinner with Yorkshire puds! She does either beef Wellington or roast beef. We always have to have Marks & Spencer crackers. They can’t be from anywhere else.

My son will say I can’t boil an egg. I can cook a roast dinner but I don’t cook it half as well as my mum. I do the chopping and peeling and my mum does all the cooking.

Because we are a big family, some years we will buy a little token gift like a Starbucks voucher. We wrap the presents up and put them all in the middle of the table, then play a game where we each take one. We can exchange them once and then have to stick with what we have. It’s a lot of fun!