00:00Hello, I'm Joanna Lumley and I adore Christmas. It's my favourite time of year.
00:05What I usually have is what we call, it sounds horrible, but it's called waifs and strays.
00:09It's people who aren't necessarily Christians, people who might not have a family, people who are singletons.
00:14And we get them at a big Christmas table. Sometimes they want to bring food.
00:17Sometimes we cook food and we all just share it out together. And it's fantastic.
00:21I always like to go, Christmas being a Christian festival, to go to a carol service.
00:26And I do lots of those because there are lots of charity carol services.
00:29I'm going to fit in as many as I can. But they're lovely because you get to see people drink mulled wine,
00:34eat a mince pie, get quite fat before Christmas, which is essential.
00:38One of the things you've got to do for Christmas is wear quite big clothes.
00:42So nobody can say you look fat because they just go, oh, you've lost weight.
00:45And you go, have I, darling? This used to be skin tight.
00:47These are just tips I'm going to give you. I try not to pop the first bottle of champagne until after midday.
00:52I just said I try. I don't always succeed.
00:56And if it's very, very cold and children in the fridge, how much harm could one small glass do?
01:03I ask you. I put it to you. So there we are. Just 7.30.
01:07God bless Mariah Carey. My Christmas isn't Christmas without that girl.
01:11But the other one, I'm afraid, is Wham's Last Christmas. That is my Christmas song.
01:16I love the old ones. I love all the bing and the crooning.
01:18And I love Elvis having a lonely, lonely Christmas without me, Elvis. Elvis, don't lose heart.
01:24I'll be there with you one day. But when people come in, you don't want too much music.
01:28You just want something a bit moody in the background. Something a little bit quiet. A little bit settling down.
01:32On Christmas Day, we both love to cook. My husband's a good cook. I love cooking.
01:36Because I'm a vegetarian, I obviously don't do turkey and chipotle and all those things.
01:39But my husband does, and the people who come and stay do.
01:42So there's always going to be traditional Christmas fare. But I love things.
01:45Yes, I love Brussels sprouts. And here's why. If you cook them.
01:49So they're al dente. Cringe. Dente. Teeth. You knew that. That's why you go to the dentist, darling.
01:55I'm incidentally a dentist as well. Nose. Liar.
01:58So you have those with sweet chestnuts. That's pretty gorgeous.
02:02But then when you've got lots of leftover, uncooked Brussels sprouts, toppy, toppy, toppy, very small.
02:07Mayonnaise, spring onion, maybe a few gherkins tossed in. It becomes the most beautiful coleslaw.
02:12Honestly, Brussels sprouts coleslaw cannot be better.
02:15I've got one which I treasure every year so much.
02:18I was in a film called The Wolf of Wall Street, in which I was forced to kiss Leonardo DiCaprio.
02:22And we got it wrong again and again. I had to kiss him 27 times.
02:27Anyway, Margot Robbie was in that as well. And she played, as you remember, Leo's wife in that film.
02:32And she made me, out of pastry, a little candy walking stick cane,
02:37which she had made a hole in it and put a loop on it, and painted it red and white.
02:41And she put it in a box to Aunt Emma, which is my character, Aunt Emma.
02:44And she put Margot Robbie, in case I didn't remember who she was.
02:47That is the sweetest thing. So that comes out every year.
02:49I come from a house of books. It has literally got books piled in every room.
02:53So I always long to get a book for Christmas, and somebody will always do that.
02:56But best of all, this year, I've written a book.
03:00And guess what it's called? It's called My Book of Treasures, which is exactly what it is.
03:05And what's on the top of my Christmas tree, you ask?
03:09Well, sometimes it's a robin, sometimes it's a star, and sometimes it's a Christmas fairy.
03:15It's a fairy.
03:16It's a fairy.
03:17It's a fairy.
03:18It's a fairy.
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