Christmas With The Stars

We speak to some of our favourite famous faces to find out their festive traditions and how they’ll be celebrating this year

- Selina Maycock, Robyn Morris, Hayley Minn And Hannah Fernando

SHIRLEY BALLAS

‘I want a proposal for Christmas’

Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas, 59, lives in London after moving from Los Angeles to take care of her mum.

I’m spending Christmas with my mother, my son and his wife and their dog Hendrix, and my dog Charlie. We’ve booked a nice restaurant to go to for a family lunch.

Christmas is about loved ones. It’s important to show your gratitude for where you are in your life and for those loved ones around you. I think it’s about spending quality time with them.

I’m so excited for my first Christmas with my boyfriend, Danny. We’ve got the run-up with the panto [Danny co-stars in Jack and the Beanstalk with Shirley at Darlington Hippodrome]. We’ll learn more about each other, although we already get on well. He has changed my whole perception on Christmas. I’d love Danny to ask me to marry him this Christmas!

A tradition of mine is that I always buy a box of Marks & Spencer Christmas crackers for my mother. I don’t cook a roast dinner with all the trimmings because I can’t even boil an egg. My mum is the best cook. Even at 82, she cooks a meal every day for herself.

My first childhood Christmas memory was when I realised that it wasn’t Santa who was putting my pillowcase at the end of my bed. It was my mother, so it was the prettiest Santa I’d ever seen.

RYLAN CLARK-NEAL

‘There’s always a Christmas disaster!’

Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two presenter Rylan Clark-Neal, 31, lives in Essex with his husband Dan.