Lobster for dinner, anyone? Stars from music, TV and sports share their bizarre Christmas traditions

Ever thought of eating lobster on Christmas Day? What about cycling more than 50 miles?

As part of the Big Issue’s My Big Year series, we asked a range of celebrities, from athletes to TV stars, what they’re planning to incorporate into their Christmas celebrations this year, and they gave us some brilliant suggestions.

So what do these stars have planned for their Christmas days?

Novelist and screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce told the Big Issue that his most treasured tradition is both “odd and beautiful”. 

“About 30 years ago a Chinese neighbour gave us a big red paper lantern,” he explained. 

“She’s long dead now but the paper lantern is still – just about – in one piece.  We hang it from the ceiling every year, then pack it away as if it was the Dead Sea Scrolls. There’s something cheering about being able to keep something so fragile in one piece for so long.”

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Olympic gold medallist Alex Yee has a Christmas ritual that we’re not sure fans will be keen to replicate, with the triathlete and his brother cycling more than 50 miles from Lewisham to Battle, Hastings on Christmas morning to see their grandparents.

“I wouldn’t call it odd but some might think so!” He said. “Last year my brother even ran it!”

Musician Ife Ogunjobi from the band Ezra Collective said his family will be eating lobster on Christmas Day instead of the traditional turkey.

“We started getting bored of the same old turkey or duck, so we started spicing it up with some lobster alongside jollof rice, plantain, etc,” he told the Big Issue. “My Christmas dinner is more like a UK roast/Nigerian dinner mash-up.”

Harry Clark, winner of BBC’s The Traitors series two, explained that every Christmas Eve after his family goes to church: “My grandad will bring us reindeer food that we can sprinkle on the front garden to make sure Father Christmas’s reindeer knows where to land.”

As for iconic BBC character Philomena Cunk? She’ll be meeting her friend Paul for a Baileys – “then we sit in silence till Boxing Day.”

To read more from the Big Issue’s Big Year series, buy a copy of the magazine directly from a vendor, or subscribe to your local vendor online. 

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