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I have to be honest, I love the Christmas build-up. Three things signal it’s begun for me – Christmas songs on the radio (see page 15 for our interview with Michael Ball and Alfie Boe), shops full of boxes of sweets and festive ads (see page 34). This year, the ads offer moments of joy in the shape of Dawn French (in panto, too, see page 96), Will Ferrell and Alison Hammond to name just three. And it’s not just the ads making me smile. I’m off to Strictly on Saturday night to watch Craig hand out his scores… At least I’m not dancing! See his thoughts on page 41. I’m a Celebrity… is causing controversy. More so than ever, with the entry of Matt Hancock. But did you know…

Whatever way you look at it, Motsi Mabuse has been a genius addition to the Strictly Come Dancing judging panel, since replacing former prima ballerina Darcey Bussell in 2019. Her often daring, uber-glam style choices, warm personality and gushing comments to celebs (cue eyerolls from Craig!) have garnered her a host of fans. But though the 41-year-old’s life may seem perfect, things haven’t always been that way. And in her autobiography, Finding My Own Rhythm, Motsi speaks candidly about some of the tough chapters in life that have led her to where she is now. The star, who has a four-year-old daughter with second husband Evgenij Voznyuk, admitted that on Strictly you’re only getting to show ‘a percentage of who you are’ – just one reason why she wanted to…

‘For the first time in many years, I’m looking forward to Christmas. So much so that I’m happily writing about it without moaning, and it’s only November! We’ve made our plans, we’ll be overdoing it with the decorations, we know what and where we’ll be eating for the whole period, stocked up on mulled wine and overordered on wood for the fire. Believe it or not, we’ve even got our outfits planned. I’m not sure what’s changed but it probably has a lot to do with the horrors of the past two-and-a-half years when you never knew if you would be allowed to enjoy such celebrations and often, you weren’t. Also, it’s doubly exciting because it’ll be the very first Christmas that Mark and I will be on our own.…

SUFFOLK Eight-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier Koby is a handsome and social boy who is looking for a home where he can relax, enjoy a fuss and play with his new family. He could live with older children and potentially a dog or cat, pending successful meets and assessments by the team at the centre. SOUTHAMPTON Two-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier Ron is a loveable boy who adores saying hello to everyone with a wiggly bum and wagging tail. He will make a great companion and has a lot of love to give. He is looking for a home where his new owner will be around to help settle him into his new surroundings and could live with older children or teenagers. SOUTHAMPTON Two-year-old German Shepherd Ella is true to her breed,…

TOP TIP! Place a beauty cracker on each guest’s placemat at Christmas for that extra luxe touch!…

How to melt Terry’s Chocolate Orange Chocolate can be tricky to handle for many cooks, but if you follow this method for melting the Chocolate Orange segments, you’ll soon find yourself with a bowl of wonderfully rich melted chocolate. 1 Bring a small pan of water to the boil and remove from the heat. 2 Put the Terry’s Chocolate Orange segments in a heatproof bowl and place it over the pan without letting the bowl touch the water below. 3 Stir the segments occasionally with a flat-bladed knife until the chocolate softens and melts. 4 You can now add it to a mixture, depending on the recipe, or stir the suggested ingredients into it. NOTES • Do not leave the pan over the heat when adding the chocolate.• Do not…

An estimated nearly 18 million people hit the UK roads last year in the run up to Christmas. And this year will likely be no different. Yet, their journey may be a dangerous one, if it includes a smart motorway. Because at the end of October, the system managing 280 miles of All Lane Running roads stopped working for seven hours. National Highways control room staff were left unable to activate signs supposed to warn drivers within 20 seconds of a vehicle breaking down in a live lane. ‘It’s an unacceptable position for motorists to be in,’ said Conservative MP Greg Smith, who sits on the Commons transport committee. ‘If the technology fails, it’s a potentially life-threatening catastrophe and means motorists were dicing with death or were sitting ducks.’ And…

Seeing my mum’s name flash up on my phone, I answered straight away. ‘Happy Christmas!’ she and her husband chorused, and I grinned. It was 25 December 2012 and not only was she phoning to wish us season’s greetings, but she wanted to say thank you, too. They were on a gorgeous sandy beach in Goa, India, and I’d planned and paid for the holiday myself. Was it a landmark occasion or some other special reason behind the trip? Not at all. I just wanted them to have a good time over the festive season. People often called me generous and that was something that had been a constant throughout my life… My mum and dad had always been generous with me and my four sisters. I was the oldest…

Cassie pinned the letter from the school secretary to the noticeboard in the kitchen and sat down at the table with a new packet of chocolate digestives. She took a deep breath. There was no need to panic yet. The Christmas Fair was still a week away. Plenty of time to get some practice in before the day of reckoning. The annual festive bake sale was every working mother’s nightmare. Having to produce something stunning, organise a million and one very important corporate events and juggle childcare at the same time was always painful. But you’re not at work anymore, the small, spiteful voice in Cassie’s head told her. What’s going to be your excuse for raiding the M&S Food Hall this year? Since her redundancy, family life had become…

GINGERBREAD COOKIES, GEORGE HOME Freshly baked gingerbread, fragranced with warm spices, dried fruits, sweet caramel and rich vanilla is ideal for any home in the build-up Christmas! Just £5. SNOW FAIRY, LUSH Fill your immediate surroundings with this iconic sweet scent. Lush’s vegan Snow Fairy candle will lift your spirits, filling you with confidence – just like a Sugar Plum fairy! £12. CUPCAKES & CASHMERE, TK MAXX A two-in-one decoration candle… What a delightful treat for any home! This blush gingerbread house candle is the sweet touch you need for your living space this festive season. £14.99.…

SCORPIO 24 October – 22 November Doing something is better than doing nothing. Take action rather than spend too much time thinking about whether or not you should make a start. If there’s a degree of risk connected with some plans and ideas, don’t let this put you off. Be bold, be willing to experiment and don’t let other people’s fears or warnings prevent you from going with your instincts. Your thoughts will prove to be intuitive, and you will start feeling more comfortable about following your heart. SAGITTARIUS 23 November – 21 December A couple of areas in your life have a question mark hanging over them. However, this isn’t bothering you too much, as you are ready to make some changes. If your hard-working efforts are being ignored…

It seems impossible to imagine Christmas at Sandringham without Her Majesty the Queen – the petite figure, in a headscarf, arriving at King’s Lynn station and then greeting the crowds in a colourful coat and hat outside St Mary Magdalene Church on Christmas morning. But, life goes on and the belief is that King Charles, a stickler for tradition, wants his family gathered at Sandringham again this December. Doubtless, high on the list of guests will be William, now of course the Prince of Wales and heir to the throne, his wife Catherine plus their three adorable children, Princes George and Louis and the Princess Charlotte. But before they arrive, Catherine is starting her own tradition. Buckingham Palace has confirmed the Princess of Wales, 40, will host a holiday carol…

1 SHAPE UP Follow trends by switching shades, not nail shape. ‘Coffin-shaped nails are popular this year and eye-catching as they are, they’re more difficult to maintain,’ explains celebrity manicurist Jenni Draper. ‘A shorter rounded nail shape, with tips extending just beyond the nail bed is chic but also less likely to snag,’ she adds. Make your base coat work harder. Max Factor Miracle Pure Nail Care Collection Strengthener, £6.99, nourishes the nails while providing the perfect base for colour. 2 TO GEL OR NOT TO GEL? Gel polishes which are cured by UV light (at salons, or you can buy your own kit like Red Carpet Manicure Starter Kit, £79.95), last longer and ‘grow out’, much like permanent hair dye. The downside is the removal requires acetone liquid and…

HOW IT WORKS The last thing you need to add to your Christmas to-do list is a diet with fussy recipes – but our Christmas Cracker diet is easy to fit into busy days when you just need to grab a quick lunch or dinner. And you could lose up to 7lbs in a week. There’s a reason that crackers like Ryvita have been a staple part of many diets for a long time – they’re low calorie – two high-fibre crackers contain around 70 calories, compared to 90 in one slice of bread and they’re super convenient – just grab them from the cupboard, add a topping and go. That’s why our Christmas Cracker diet is so easy. However, not all crackers are created equal. To get the best…

Darling Ben, You have strong views about not getting too festive too soon. You’re all about keeping Christmas minimal. You grew up one of six children, and you are not used to Christmas being a lavish flurry of tinsel, wreaths on every door, holly and ivy twisting up the bannisters and the kitchen units being festooned with paper chains. Frankly, you’d be happy with a small artificial tree, a couple of budget baubles and a microwaved mince pie. Every year you try to rein in my Christmas, lecturing me on not going over the top and laying down the law about spoiling the grandchildren. Quite frankly, even when you are away in panto – as you will be this year, playing Dandini in Cinderella in Portsmouth – I can feel…

As Darcy explained with his ‘Eurovision Song Contest of Dating’ analogy, I tend not to have a type. I date men from the East End to Eton, born in a variety of countries. And, as I tend to listen to his thinking (the whole point of a male friend), if I’m serious about finding my soulmate, dating is a numbers game. So, here’s a quick recap. My ex, East End Boy, is still texting. But I’ve decided if I’m serious about meeting ‘The One’, I need to move on. As a psychiatrist friend said patiently to me last week: ‘It’s not that a man who reaches 50 and has never married can’t commit, but this one has never even given a woman his door key… It’s a climb I would…

This year, I wanted to create a classic Italian cake with showstopping qualities that could easily be the centrepiece at your festive table. Sparkly and white snowflakes falling slowly on frosted trees is what I tried to recreate in my stunningly simple but elegant Christmas cake. It starts with a sugar cone decoration that is easy enough for children to make with sparkly sugar and little novelty ice cream cones. Natale Nougat Cake Serves 30-40 Preparation time: 90 mins Baking time: 30-40 mins plus cooling and chilling time FOR THE CAKE • 300g or 3 slabs chopped nougat (available from Waitrose or Aldi)• 200ml whole milk• 300g white chocolate, broken into pieces• 500g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing• 200g caster sugar• 300g light soft brown sugar• 10 large…

It’s those vast uninterrupted skies that people often talk about on the Orkney Isles. Relatively few trees, low-level buildings and plenty of wide open spaces, with barely much light pollution, so in parts you can even spot the Northern Lights. It also consistently tops the best places to live in the UK lists, so that sky must be having quite the impact at the very least. And here’s why… An archipelago, Orkney is made up of 70 islands, 20 of those inhabited, located some 10 miles off the Scottish mainland. You may imagine it as being remote and hard to live here, but you’d be wrong. Transport links are excellent between the mainland and the various islands, thanks to daily ferries, flights and buses. Employment, too, is some of the…

FOR HIM Remarkable Football Grounds Ryan Herman Pavilion Books, £25 Any fan of the beautiful game will fall for this gorgeous coffee table book. A tour of the most incredible venues – from the Hebrides to far-flung Pacific islands – it’s a visual treat combined with some fascinating backstories. The Satsuma Complex: A Novel Bob Mortimer Gallery, £16.99 The comedian and amateur fisherman turns novelist with a quirky crime caper. Hapless legal assistant Gary gets involved in a murder mystery the same day he meets the girl of his dreams. A surreal, gag-packed adventure full of charm. FOR HER The Plant Hunter TL Mogford Welbeck, £8.99 Go along with Harry on a grand adventure, as – in the Victorian age of mania about botany – he is given a map…

Though President John F Kennedy’s family spent only two Christmas holidays in the White House, in 1961 and 1962, his wife Jackie, in particular, set the standard for what these special occasions could look like – and her daughter Caroline still remembers those traditions well… 1 THE PRESENTS WERE WRAPPED… JFK’s daughter Caroline can still remember what she asked Santa for in 1962, aged five. In her 2007 book, A Family Christmas, she recalled requesting, ‘a pair of silver skates, dolls, a real pet reindeer and a clock’. All but the reindeer are still great ideas! She added that they liked to create presents – such as cookies and drawings. 2 THE CHRISTMAS PLAY – AND POEMS… During what would tragically prove to be John F Kennedy’s final Christmas in…

CHRISTMAS IN MY HEART Tuesday, 2.15pm Violinist Beth returns home after the recent death of her mother and tutors the daughter of a reclusive country music star, to prepare her for the upcoming holiday concert. A SMALL TOWN CHRISTMAS WISH Wednesday, 2.15pm A high-flying female novelist from New York takes a trip to the small town that inspired her latest bestseller. Will she find love there, though? Time will tell! IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS Friday, 2.15pm When a New England Christmas decorating competition searches for the town with the most festive spirit, the mayors of East and West Riverton go all out to get their towns to the top of the holiday heap.…

Viewers are once again hooked on I’m a Celebrity – back in its traditional home of Australia after two years of pandemic saw it move to a Welsh castle. But did you know that this year is also – somewhat unbelievably – the show’s 20th anniversary? Over the past two decades, it’s safe to say we’ve seen it all – from Katie Price and Peter Andre’s love story unfolding in front of our eyes to Helen Flanagan refusing to do pretty much every Bushtucker Trial. So what are the nation’s favourite moments from years gone by? From the very first series, which kicked off in the Summer of 2002, it was clear hosts Ant and Dec were onto a winner. The line-up included radio DJ Tony Blackburn, comedian Rhona Cameron,…

The countdown to Christmas is the busiest time of year for most of us and Strictly Come Dancing presenter Tess Daly is no exception. As the BBC show gears up for its glitzy, grand finale, Tess, 53, and her co-host Claudia Winkleman will be putting in the hours as they front the show week in, week out till Christmas. But while hubby Vernon Kay is usually at home holding the fort, he will soon have his own hectic schedule to contend with. Vernon, 48, will be taking to the stage as the star in the couple’s hometown local panto. Vern, who lives in Buckinghamshire with Tess and their daughters Phoebe, 18, and Amber, 13, is taking on the role of Dandini in Cinderella at the Wycombe Swan Theatre (see page…

They’ve been friends for more than 10 years – Michael, the jocular, naughty one; Alfie his slightly shyer, down-to-earth but equally talented and sometimes very dry sidekick. ‘Can you see us yet?’ Michael booms as we work out Zoom – me in the office, them at Soho House. ‘We’re better in the dark,’ laughs Alfie. ‘I can see you now!’ I shout excitedly. ‘Turn your camera on, love,’ Michael laughs, ‘because we can’t see you yet.’ Oh yes, that will help. Finally, we can all see each other. The lovable double act have just got back from Las Vegas and Michael in particular can’t wait to spill the beans… Hi, you two. You’ve back from Las Vegas filming for your new album, Together in Vegas. Did you have a good…

What with all the Christmas shopping and cooking who’s got the time – or cash – for lengthy beauty treatments? Here’s how to look and feel festively fabulous with some home essentials… WINE FACE? One glass too many combined with sleepless nights can result in red cheeks and bloating. Antioxidants in blueberries help protect against free radicals, soothe redness and will help repair damage. Combine 1 tbsp crushed ripe blueberries, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp cucumber juice, 2 tbsp baking soda, and 2 tbsp warm water. Apply to cleansed skin, avoiding eye area. Leave for 20 minutes. Gently rinse with a flannel and tepid water EYE BAG SLEIGH-ER Feeling the strain of lack of sleep and over indulgence? Potatoes contain an enzyme called catalase, which helps decrease water retention…

MISSING ELLIE I must say, I do miss Ellie Simmonds’ energy and personality around the place, after her elimination the other week. She wanted to prove that anything is possible in life, and my goodness, she did. She and Nikita were a fabulous partnership and she’s been such a highlight of this series. IT’S LIVE TV! So, Shirley called pro dancer Dianne Buswell ‘Diana’ – who cares! Honestly, live TV is tricky when the pressure is on, we’ve all been there – and we’ve all slipped up. It’s harder than it looks to come up with a critique of a dance you’ve just seen, for a minute 30, then have 10 seconds to decide what mark you’re giving! So, go easy on us judges, darlings…! STAR POWER It was lovely…

PRE-CHRISTMAS STRESS… My anxiety goes through the roof every year just before Christmas and I can’t seem to help it. My parents and in-laws don’t particularly get on and I tend to push myself to make it the best time for my kids, but after all these years it’s starting to take its toll. Last year I actually had a panic attack. What are the best ways to stay calm and level without resorting to medication? Lorna, Wales DR HILARY SAYS: You are not alone in finding surviving Christmas very stressful! Obviously, you want to make this a happy time for everyone – but it’s easy to raise expectations too high, especially when relatives don’t get along, easily leading to tension over which you have no control. The secret is…

In last month’s column, I gave the impression I was a bit of a Tom Cat–manically rushing from one date to the next, barely enough time to shower, squirt some Acqua Di Parma behind each ear, change outfits and arrive. Since then, things have calmed down. Multiple dates are not for me. I’m looking for one woman, not one new woman a week. My mini dating spurt was due to ‘liking ’ three ladies who had liked me back, thus triggering me being busier than a removal company at Downing St. Date Number One wasn’t ‘the one’, I think we both felt that, so I moved on to Candidate Number Two. An energetic, cool collection of pictures, 44, a mum and a funny texter. I had high hopes. Arriving a…

HAIR HEROES Winter weather can be a nightmare for hair. Wind, rain and tumbling temperatures – not to mention central heating – they all play havoc with our locks. The good news is that dry, damaged tresses can be restored with a few clever products. There’s a spray, oil, and serum to bring hair back to life in no time. And, as we’re now in the party season, it’s worth treating yourself to a weekly mask. All of these hair heroes will help perfect your crowning glory and everything costs under £10. 1 FRIZZ FIGHTER L’Oréal Paris Elvive Dream Lengths Sleek Frizz Killer Serum (£3.99, Superdrug) Serum is still the best product you can find for fighting frizz. This one is very light, so won’t weigh down your hair and…

A large three-bedroom detached, C-listed property with the original building dating from the 1800s and an extension added more recently. Close to Kirkwall town centre, with views over Bignold Park, it is asking offers over £195,000 via D&H (01856 872216). This four-bedroom house with a sheltered patio and large rear garden in the Stromness town conservation area, opposite Pier Arts Centre and near the harbour, is asking offers over £265,000 via Lows (01856 873151). A three-bedroom detached home in the heart of the village of Pierowall, Westray, it has a large garden, garage and workshop and enjoys beautiful views over the bay, with direct access to the shore. It is for sale at £220,000 via Lows (01856 873151). ● Follow Rachel’s progress on Instagram @the_shoestring_home…

OH, CHRISTMAS TREE… An eye-catching, freestanding piece of festive decor, perfect for fans of glamorous decs and jewels. These cones could easily blend into modern, glamorous or traditional-style homes. On sale now £25.45 from melodymaison.co.uk DECK THE HALLS! This two-metrelong Christmas wreath bunting is a different way to decorate this season! Perfect for adding that festive feel to your home. Just £11.99 from partypieces.co.uk BRILLIANT BAUBLES… Decorate your tree with traditional festive colours with this pack of 49 Traditional Christmas Baubles. Perfect for creating a cohesive look for your decs, these baubles come in red, green and gold. £3.99 at The Range.…

Crafting queen Sara Davies launched her business empire while still at university. Today, she is worth over £40 million. In 2016, she was awarded an MBE by Prince William for her services to the economy, and in 2019 she was named the youngest entrepreneur to join BBC One’s Dragon’s Den as an investor. Here, Sara talks about how Christmas crafts can save you money, how competing on Strictly Come Dancing cemented her love of ballroom dancing, gave her a lifelong friend in pro partner Aljaž, and her thoughts on who she hopes will lift the glitterball this year… You are off on a Christmas crafting tour next month – tell us more… It’s the first time I have done anything like this. After I did Strictly, I did the live…