Sophie Ambrose shares her Christmas traditions including the book she reads every year and her favourite Christmas album.
As a publisher of non-fiction, it won’t surprise you that on Christmas Eve I like to share with my children the true story of Father Christmas and his flying reindeer: The Night Before Christmas. It was first published long before publishers had legal teams that required authors to provide proof of events. Reading it instantly transports me back in time, to being a child in London and feeling ridiculously excited about the stocking at the end of my bed and the presents beneath the tree. I still love Christmas as much as I did back then and get the same thrill when I see my children’s stockings. I know: I’m insufferable.
Sophie's essential Christmas books
Clement C. Moore's The Night Before Christmas by Anita Lobel
Each year, I snuggle up in bed with my boys and we try to remember the names of the reindeer before we begin. Each year, without fail, I forget Cupid because it’s a stupid name for a reindeer. We then get down to business and I produce the fabric version of the book that my mother-in-law hand-stitched for us years ago. It gives the tradition a bit of a magical quality, to be honest, but you could just purchase a picture book version if your in-laws refuse to get out a needle and thread. I know for a fact that another staff member lights a candle when she reads her edition, but that’s overkill, if you ask me. The magic should all come from the book.
Nigella Christmas by Nigella Lawson
The other tradition I have is baking the snowflake biscuits on p.194 of Nigella Christmas. Nigella is a kitchen goddess but I am not, so I have to get the children involved and they read aloud the recipe and remind me, at regular intervals, that I burnt the biscuits last year.
If the biscuits are cooked for the correct length of time, the house suddenly smells like Christmas – the scent of cloves and nutmeg fills the air – and it’s truly joyous in a Nigella-like way. But it’s the next stage when things generally go awry. Nigella does not mention in Nigella Christmas that icing the biscuits before you hang them on the tree will be immensely time-consuming and fiddly. She doesn’t tell you that one child will likely stomp off because their biscuit now looks like a giant blob, and the other child will sob because theirs broke. I generally pour myself a glass of wine at this point.
What I’m listening to
I always listen to Michael Bublé on Christmas Day and highly recommend his Christmas hits. A word of warning: if you’re middle-aged, like me, this is the only day you should listen to Bublé because it’s a slippery slope to Smooth FM.
What I’m watching
I watch every single dodgy Christmas film on Netflix in the lead-up to Christmas so that the whole family gets in the mood. My husband in particular gets in a mood, but I guess we all have our own traditions. At least he has my Christmas quiz to look forward to!
Still have some Christmas shopping to do? Check out the best books to gift this year.
Banish your fish fears and make Nigella's simple fish stew, brimming with spices and tender white fish. As seen on her BBC2 series, Cook, Eat, Repeat.
I have been making a banana bread with chocolate and tahini on repeat for a while now, and every time I’ve eaten it over the last year or so, I couldn’t help thinking that the particular combination of intense chocolatiness, sweet, texture-softening banana and the rich earthiness of tahini would make the perfect warm pudding.
This is not exactly the same as perhaps the most precious recipe in my repertoire, My Mother’s Praised Chicken, which found a home in my eighth book, Kitchen, but it owes a lot to it. A family favourite, it’s a simple one-pot dish which brings comfort and joy, and it is my pleasure to share that with you.
A rich and intense recipe for this classic British dessert from Nigella Lawson's At My Table.
This ginger-spiked carrot cake from Nigella Lawson’s At My Table is perfect for teatime or dessert.
A creamy, tangy pasta dish from Nigella Lawson's At My Table that's so easy to make.
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