I like them all, but especially look forward each year to the Xmas eve drive to see holiday lights in the neighborhoods, drop off food bank donations, listen to our holiday play list, and as the passenger, sip spiked hot chocolate. I wear my artificial fur coat and tacky Xmas dangle earrings and red scarf and just enjoy it so much.

New year's eve late night fire. New year's day is my birthday. I stay up and wake Rosemary up just before midnight as she has fallen asleep just before that. After the start to the new year she goes off to bed and I go out in the back yard and light a fire (illegal) in the fire pit and have a drink and chill both literally and figuratively.

A concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Usually it's classical music, with the orchestra dressed in 18th-century costumes and the choir singing from the Messiah, Gloria, etc., along with carols for everyone to sing.

This year it was different. They had the classical series, but we got tickets for a ballroom-dancing-themed show. It was fantastic. The two lead dancers are big stars in the UK from our TV dancing show (Strictly Come Dancing), and they were amazing. There was a big troupe of dancers, a Michael Buble-style crooner, a great jazz orchestra, backing singers and a children's choir. It was magical, like watching all the best dance scenes from classic Hollywood musicals.

Anyway, after the concert we always walk back through Kensington, looking at the lights. One year, maybe four or five years ago, we left the Royal Albert Hall and it started to snow, that very light, crystalline snow that twinkles in the light. It was so beautiful and Christmassey. And then the Queen's Household Cavalry rode by on their horses - WTF?!! All that was missing was Hugh Grant! The Americans leaving the concert hall with us just about shit themselves.

My other Christmas tradition is to make Mexican food for Christmas Day. I'm by myself, so I have a free hand to eat whatever I want. I always make cochinita pibil, using annato smuggled in from the States. So yesterday when everyone in the supermarket was fighting over turkeys, sprouts, bags of potatoes, etc. I was able to pick up my pork, black beans, rice, tortillas, cilantro and limes with no fuss at all. This year a new Jamaican food store has opened not far away, so I'm going to call in there today to see if they have banana leaves (you're meant to wrap the marinated meat in banana leaves before it goes into the oven, but I've never been able to find them and have had to use foil).

My mom's latkes were always greatly anticipated. My brothers and their families would be over and we'd all be standing around the stove with our plates, waiting for the next batch. Course, that's all in the past now. But I am making latkes this year (I cheat and use a mix, but they're still yummy, with apple sauce on the side).

With Jon's family all up in Maine, it's just the two of us for Christmas, but I am making his mom's Christmas dinner-- filet mignon and restuffed potatoes (with roasted garlic, which I tried for the first time over Thanksgiving, roasting whole heads of garlic), and my own creamed spinach soufflé. Some jumbo shrimp cocktail to start.

I enjoy watching the Christmas cartoons when they come on each year, too-- Charlie Brown Christmas and Frosty and Rudolph. Always a treat, even at 50.

For me, it's visiting a couple of my closest friends who live in another state. It happens at a different time every year because our schedules are nuts, but it doesn't feel like Christmas until we've gone up for a night stay at their house, sat up late around the kitchen table eating Christmas cookies and drinking wine, and enjoying their incredible powers of lively and wide-ranging conversation as well as making a little music over the course of a long winter's evening. Always so festive and joyful as we appreciate one another's friendship so much.