I love Christmas dinner as much as anyone. After all, I pretty much get to make the menu, cook it and serve it. Just today my daughter Rachel and I have donned felt antlers to make up some venison sausage rolls, cranberry sauce and start fermenting blini batter for smoked salmon blinis that we serve Christmas morning. Tomorrow (also with some kind of festive headgear) it is roasting carrots for mashing with rosemary butter, preparing my Southern cornbread stuffing to the part-bake stage, and making crumpets to toast on Boxing Day morning (see below).

As the Christmas Day hostess I still get a buzz seeing platters passed around and everyone helping themselves to scoops of this and slices of that, all smiles and Christmas cracker jokes. But the next day is just as awesome, and without the pressure.