WHAT CHRISTMAS IS REALLY ABOUT...

Writer Tess Stimson, 51, looks back at where her family traditions all began

- TESS STIMSON

The Christmas rituals of my childhood were as unchanging as the late Queen herself, whose speech we’d all sit down to watch together at 3pm on Christmas Day.

The festive countdown started with opening the first window of the Advent Calendar on 1 December, to reveal the Nativity picture behind it.

We put up the tree the Saturday before Christmas – not a day earlier.

THE CHERISHED ANGEL

I’d decorate it with my sister, Philippa, and brother, Charles, and then my father would put the angel I made when I was two on the top.

Mum would get out the Nativity scene with Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and the Three Wise Men, but she didn’t put Baby Jesus in the manger until Christmas morning.