Festive traditions with our team

Christmas is all about human connection. The brands that win big are the ones that tell stories that feel like our own, tapping into our emotions and reflecting back our own memories.

And yet we’ve all got our own take on Christmas traditions. Here are some of ours… 

Hannah: 

The Christmas tree is my mum’s pride and joy. She guards it with great care, including making sure bauble sizes get incrementally smaller further up. There’s a lot of rules. So naturally it’s become a bit of a tradition in our house to try to hang an interesting (unwanted) item on the tree and see if and how she will react. Sorry mum.

Nish: 

The beauty of living in a different country is that I get to celebrate the festive season in two homes. In London, Christmas is marked by overflowing stockings, DIY recipes, and movie nights with my flatmates. In India, our little family tradition is to see the Christmas lights, grab a nice dinner, and come home to finish the day with a delicious rum and raisin cake – sourced from a new place each year.

Sam: 

Christmas traditions used to mean drinks at the pub, roast beef, wine, groggy trips to church, champagne, ham, turkey, more wine, and family. This year, it’s likely to include all of the above with nappy changes, sleepless nights, and even more wine.

Curtis: 

The Boxing Day dip in the sea has quickly become a new tradition with friends. We kick off early in the morning to shake off any lingering hangovers, take the plunge, then rush out to grab a warm coffee and biscuits to ease into the rest of the day.

Dan: 

In a house of football heads, the Boxing Day football marathon is just as important as Jesus’s birthday. The menu is planned around the kick-off schedule, and the change of fixture signals a change of tipple. Bloody Marys very quickly become Margaritas.

Tom:

Christmas lunch for us is all about the ‘MasterChef challenge.’ Each of us is assigned a dish to make, ranging from gravy to big bird herself. We then rate the dishes from best to worst, after a few wines this gets pretty heated, ending in a forfeit for the worst dish, chosen by the winner.

Nat: 

There’s nothing better than a spreadsheet, and my Christmas spreadsheet is no exception. This spreadsheet runs the entire show – from organising Christmas gifts and stocking presents through to the roast dinner timings, ingredients and automatically creating the grocery shopping list (ordered correctly by aisle, of course). Merry VLOOKUP and a happy SUMIFS to all!

Freya:

Traditions for us our pretty straight down the line, maybe a couple of things would be… My Dad’s attempts at carols on the piano. Despite a lifetime of piano playing, he’s still hilariously incapable of mastering the basics of carols. It’s a uniquely painful, yet somehow endearing, way to wake up. (The piano is now a keyboard and the sound setting is ‘church organ’. painful).

My mum always makes all our Christmas crackers. Forget plastic trinkets—some of my most favourite gifts ever have come from these!