For entertainer and broadcaster Jane McDonald, the season is simply magical and always brings back cherished memories
Jane McDonald and Christmas go together like roast turkey and cranberry sauce. She simply adores this time of year.
“I love everything about it – the food, the decorations, the Christmas jumper, the tree, the carols and Christmas songs, and most of all, being with family and friends,” she says warmly.
“That’s what it’s really about. Spending precious time with the people you love.”
For Jane (60), as for the rest of us, it can also be a very emotional time of year as we remember those we have loved and lost. Her much-loved father, Peter, died in the early 1990s. More recently, she lost her mum Janet in 2018, while Ed, the fiancé she adored, passed away in 2021.
Jane being Jane, however, concentrates on the positives. She’ll be spending Christmas at home in her beloved Wakefield with family members and close friends, including best pal Sue, with whom she appears on Celebrity Gogglebox – and she can’t wait!
All I Want For Christmas . . .
Jane has a favourite festive memory from childhood.
“I really wanted a bike for Christmas when I was 12 but we came from humble beginnings and the bike I wanted was too expensive. My dad found an old frame in August and went down to the cellar every night to work on it – he sprayed it gold and wrapped it up for Christmas and it was the best present I’d ever had. He bought a new saddle for it and new handlebars.
“I’ll never forget about it. It was a great bike.”
Jane’s Top Seasonal Tip . . .
We need never have tangled-up festive fairy lights again!
“It’s one from my mum – an old McDonald one! When you put your lights away every year, wrap them around an old cardboard tube. It makes them so much easier to unravel when you put them up again.”
My Best And Worst Christmas Presents!
“Apart from the bike, my beautiful engagement ring from my late fiancé, Ed, was the best. He proposed on Christmas Eve 2008 and completely took me by surprise. We were out for dinner at my local Italian restaurant. We both started crying and we ordered champagne.
“The worst has to be a nose hair trimmer from my ex-husband with a self-help book, too. It went in a drawer – but do you know what? I use it now, so it’s come in handy. It’s lasted longer
