ON FAMILY CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS
THERE’S nothing bah humbug about Alexander Armstrong – he can’t wait for all things Christmas. While others may reel from the stresses of the festive season, the Pointless host, 48, admits he’s “sort of elf-like in my adoration of the yule”.
“I’m a singer as well, and for singers – for choral singers – Christmas is like Christmas! It’s amazing,” explains the star, who admittedly loves nothing more than a celebratory sing-song with his wife and four young sons.
“There’s so much music. Everything about it should be cherished.”
It’s this unrelenting enthusiasm that understandably puts Alexander – who came to fame as one half of a comedy duo with Ben Miller – in pole position to present ITV’S Best Christmas Ever.
A one-off, fabulously festive offering that will see him joined by a host of celebrity guests, each on mission to find out what – aptly – makes the best Christmas ever!
There will be fun, chat and live music as the famous faces go head-to-head to get their favourite bits voted ‘the best’ by the studio audience.
So what’s the secret to conquering Christmas time, you ask? We find out more from Alexander himself.
ON THE FESTIVE SPECIAL
THE main function of the show is to wallow in all the things that we love about Christmas. Christmas is one of those things that just gathers customs and traditions.
If something happens twice, then it’s a tradition! So I think we are trying to find what the quintessence of ‘Christmas’ is.
The things that we fall back on are generally music, good company, booze, films, games and the many little flavours that we genuinely love.
So it’s time to shake the tree to see what’s still hanging on and find out what we really cleave to at this time of year.
ON THE PROSPECT OF SPECIAL CELEBRITY GUESTS
MY wife and I tend to divide and conquer. We try to do as much as we can in advance, but I’ve never been a fan of lessening the workload on the day. So yes, you can parboil your potatoes and your sprouts till you’re blue in the face, but you’ve still got to cook the b **** rs on the day.
The thing that always happens is everything’s ready apart from the roast potatoes. So everyone’s p **** d by the time you sit down anyway and it’s practically dark, but who cares? As soon as you’ve got a paper crown on your head, everything’s fine.
WE have various Christmas traditions and sometimes families have their own slightly mad ones. For example, our one is that we stand on the stairs and sing ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ at teatime on Christmas Eve. I don’t know why, it’s just what we do! Every year, it’s got a bit more elaborate. Last year someone decided to light candles and turn the lights off.
ON WHETHER HE’LL BE SINGING ON THE SHOW
THERE’S quite a lot of management of expectation going on – as well as running around looking for batteries. If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s just to buy a massive bag of every single possible size of battery you could possibly need.
But yes, there’s high spirits mixed with everyone getting overtired and lots of children running around the house, which is lovely.
God, I’ll miss it when the children reach the next stage of family life.
ON THE EXCITEMENT OF BEING ON TELEVISION AT CHRISTMAS
IT’S THE most exciting thing. Partly because like all people of my generation, the first thing we would do at the beginning of the Christmas holidays is to sit down with the Radio Times and the TV Times and circle everything we wanted to watch.
We would plan all our Christmas viewing! You see, so much of the spirit of Christmas is involved in getting together as a family around the television.
ON HIS ALL-IMPORTANT NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS