Established firmly in the public’s memory with his unforgettably dynamic and voracious performances on BBC’s revolutionary home makeover programme Changing Rooms, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen has since channelled his artistic and designer talents into a broad range of presenting, advisory and entertaining roles on our small screens. Mirroring his on-screen persona, Laurence lives just as fabulous a life off screen with his family as on. And true to the famous proverb ‘Behind every great man, there stands a great woman’ Jackie Llewelyn-Bowen is the ribbon to Laurence’s bow, supporting and advising her husband every step of his career, and often even out glamming him.

Have you always valued the importance of Christmas?
Laurence: I think Christmas is becoming increasingly important in our hectic, overstretched lives, it’s very important to be able to take two weeks out from all that responsibility and spend it in a way that reaffirms what’s important in life. Sure, it can be a titanic whirl of overindulgence and over expenditure but it is for many people, one of the most eloquent ways of showing love and affection.
Nowadays Christmas seems to be returning to its pagan roots, it’s much more about feasting, indulgence and partying, than the Christian festival most of us fondly assume the real spirit of Christmas encapsulates. The origins of Christmas are thought to be linked to the Roman’s decadent and munificent midwinter festival ‘Saturnalia’. Therefore it always amuses me when people ask whether I like to celebrate Christmas in a traditional way, because when you bear in mind the pagan tradition, my Christmas bears many of the hallmarks of a Roman orgy! However it’s only in recent times that the orgy has come to be associated with sexual licence.

How would you describe your “perfect Christmas”?
Laurence: For me, the perfect Christmas is an opportunity to take stock of what one has achieved and then start thinking of all the things to look forward to in the New Year. It’s definitely about friends, family, and being able to treat the most important people in my life to pretty little shiny things in fabulously elegant ribboned boxes. For us the festive period is about sharing, particularly since having the children we’ve loved to incorporate as many of our friends, family and even passing waifs and strays into our celebrations as possible. Jackie is very at home entertaining on an epic scale and for us one of the main traditions of Christmas is feasting. 

How do you keep the children occupied through their school holiday?
Laurence:There’s nothing like a trip to London; a trolley dash around Fortnum and Mason, a sit on Father Christmas’ knee in Harrods and a treat lunch at the Ritz – the children love it. Hermione is obsessed by skating so we’ll often have to find somewhere to take her for a whoosh around the ice – one of our favourite places is the Eden project in Cornwall. The kids are lucky because they have so many friends in the village so they’ll often be found just “hanging out”. Both Cecile and Hermione love Christmas – they get very excited about presents and even at 13 I think Cecile half believes in Father Christmas. It’s a wonderful, very mysterious idea that comes to us from a much earlier age.

Do you go to church for any of the Christmas services?
Laurence: Christmas Day always seems to start so early, so we tend not to go to church on the day itself – there’s always so much to do and the house will be full of people. But the family carol service on Christmas Eve is always popular with us. Last year Jackie helped decorate the church and it looked like a Christmas card. More than anything it’s a lovely way of catching up with everyone else in the village, swapping cards and wishing them well.

Christmas can also be a romantic time of year; with 19 years of marriage under your belt, how do you spoil each other during the festive period?
Laurence: It’s important that in the midst of all the partying Jackie and I have an opportunity for a little bit of grown up time on our own. I’m always quick to encourage the children and indeed any guests we’ve got, to let Jackie and I have a bit of time on our own on Christmas Eve evening. It’s only fair as she’s the one that’s gone to all the effort and it’s lovely to be able to give her presents without them being overshadowed by lots of overexcited unwrapping coming from the children. 

What will you be eating on the day?
Jackie: We always plough through the traditional roast turkey and trimmings. I normally serve garlic-smoked honey and butter carrots, which I steam really slowly with just a tiny bit of water – sweet, smoky, garlicky carrots are amazing. I also do simple roast parsnips, crispy roast potatoes, peas and broccoli and of course, sprouts, with chestnuts and crispy bits of smoked bacon. Over the years, I have come to virtually memorise Delia Smith’s Christmas – my bible of festive food – and if I have vegetarians, I almost always serve her veggie roulade, which is lovely even if you do eat meat. We do the Christmas pudding thing, even though we are usually fit to burst by this time, principally because of the ceremony of it all. The older members of the family love it and it’s always a homemade pudding, but rarely by me. 

Laurence :For us there’s no point in getting too jazzy or over-creative with food at Christmas, it’s the traditions we feel make the season. What does amaze me is quite how badly most people cook traditional turkey. Jackie’s solution is straightforward but creative, cook two smaller birds perfectly rather that one ostrich-sized fowl.

Do the children help to cook?
Jackie: I do encourage the children to help in the kitchen, partly to keep them away from the hours of telly, but also because I believe passionately that we need to pass basic family cooking skills on to our children. I learned to cook from my mother, she from hers and my children will learn to cook from me, whether they like it or not!

Do you think it’s important to consider where your ingredients are coming from?
Jackie: I do prefer to know that the animals I am eating have lived a happy, healthy life – I only eat organic meat these days and my turkey comes from a local, organic farm. The Cotswolds are the heart of food production and the quality of food produced in the area is very high. I love the tradition of going to collect the Christmas turkey and meeting all the neighbours doing the same thing. We also enjoy all the farmers’ markets around the area – there are always lots of tempting local cheeses and wines, pickles and cakes. It’s all too much temptation for the greedy old bon viveurs that we are!

Laurence: Living in the Cotswolds we’re extremely lucky to be surrounded by unbelievably good organic meat suppliers and vegetable growers. It’s an easy thing for us to put together Christmas lunch without ever going near a supermarket, which somehow reinforces a sense of us being part of a rural tradition and agricultural community. There’s something rather nice about sitting down for Christmas lunch knowing exactly where everything has come from. Although one can go too far and find the children put off by the fact that they feel as if they’ve met the turkey on their plate. 

The Christmas spirit can suddenly engulf you, what makes you feel it most?
Jackie: Carol concerts always do it for me. Children singing are emotive and beautiful, and I love to watch their little faces and expressions. I do usually shed a tear or two, much to the resigned embarrassment of my girls.

Laurence: It’s funny because the thing that really makes me feel Christmassy more than anything else is feeling cold. A bright, fresh, frosty November morning is, I think, the most powerful evocation of pre-Christmas anticipation. Christmas decorations in shop windows, smelling cooking turkey and seeing twinkling fairy lights all carry with them Christmas connotations, but it’s winter branches silhouetted against a pale big sky that, for me, is the most powerful illustration that Christmas is around the corner. Though it’s the last three or four days before Christmas that mean the most to me, when the family have started to assemble, the children have broken up from school, and Christmas has a very strong sense of becoming an immediate reality.