Vince Cable, senior Liberal Democrat and MP for Twickenham
My Christmas is organised around my multinational, multiracial family. Christmas Day came twice for me this year. I had my first family Christmas Dinner last week, bringing together my wife Rachel, my three children by my late wife Olympia, their spouses, my grandchildren and Olympia’s sister. My eldest son Paul is married to a Hungarian Slovak and they were off to enjoy winter in the snow by the Danube, but we were lucky to find one day close to Christmas where we could all be together. The 25th itself will be spent on my wife’s farm in the New Forest.
We will spend a few days there before heading up to Scotland to be with Rachel’s grandchildren. It’s been a busy year in Parliament – and a very busy period as Acting Leader, culminating in a dance with Strictly Come Dancing Star, Alesha – and I am looking forward to some R & R. However, I do hope to spend a little time adding the finishing touches to my book…
Michela Wrong, Africa commentator and New Statesman columnist
I’ll be covering the Kenyan elections, due on 27th December. Elections almost always happen over Christmas in Kenya: former president Daniel arap Moi was thought to like this timing as it meant city-registered opposition supporters would be upcountry for the festivities and miss out on the vote.
If the opinion polls are to be believed, this is going to be a very close race between incumbent Mwai Kibaki and Rail Odinga, veteran opposition leader, which raises the likelihood of violence. On a lighter front, Christmas in Nairobi is always an intriguingly surreal experience. Black Santa Clauses doing the whole “ho, ho, ho” routine in shopping plazas, shop windows spray-painted with fake snow as the sun beats down outside, and the most glorious, heart-warming carol singing from church choirs.
Melissa, Steven and their daughter Leah are homeless and live in a hostel
This year it’s going to be our daughter’s first Christmas, so it should be one we’ll remember forever. However we’re living in a hostel at the moment, waiting for the council to decide if we get a house. It’s not very Christmassy; we can’t have a tree or put decorations up because of the health and safety rules, and there are always strangers coming and going. Christmas day we’re going to my partner’s granny’s house which will be good, but it would be better if we had a home of our own to wake up in on Christmas morning. I just don’t want my baby to miss out.
Lindsey Hilsum, China Correspondent for Channel 4 News and a New Statesman columnist
I’ve ignored Christmas since I was 18. I suddenly realised that once I was a grown-up I didn’t have to do it any more, and I’ve never got over that feeling of liberation. Some people may think I’m a horrible Scrooge, but I bring family and friends presents from my travels any time of year. Last December I retreated to the sofa in my Beijing flat and read for a week. This year I’m going on holiday to Laos with a friend. There’ll be no pressure to celebrate Christmas because we’re travelling on the 25th. Oh, and back on the 1st. I don’t do New Year either.
Anne Milton, MP for Guildford
Christmas – I love it! I avoid those who are humbuggy just in case they take the shine off my excitement. For us – a Christian festival for sure; it’s about being at home; lots of family and often friends to stay; turkey most certainly (goose is a tad New Labour); home-made stuffing, bread sauce, mince pies and pudding – we’re no help at all to M&S. Lots of decorations round the house, real tree, Father Christmas still visits my 23 year old son.
We stay up late reading books in bed, stay in bed late reading books in the morning, watch DVDs and sentimental films, drink to absent friends, feel nostalgic, feel sad that some people aren’t with us anymore, always think about having “people in” but never get round to it – actually I think I’ve forgotten how to do entertaining but who cares I love it all!
Commissioners John and Betty Matear, territorial Leaders for the Salvation Army in the UK
Just before Christmas we will be visiting some of our Social Service Centres in London and on Christmas day will worship at The Salvation Army. Unfortunately, a visit to family in Scotland is not possible but our son will join us for a few days. We will take time to include some of our favourite walks along the Thames embankment, do a minimal amount of shopping, and read – both catch up and leisure. The fortunes of Leeds United will be closely monitored! Holiday plans for 2008 will be finalised and above all there will be time and space for reflection and renewal.
Keith Vaz, Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee and MP for Leicester East
I shall be catching up with all the film releases that I have missed over the past few weeks. I used to enjoy taking my two children Luke and Anjali to see a new movie every Saturday afternoon but as they have got older (they are now 12 and 10) their Saturday social calendar is really full, as mine thankfully has decreased. Some of the plots – American Gangster, The Golden Compass, may inspire me as I finalise proposals to put to the Home Affairs Committee for the inquiry programme for next year.”
Innocent Sithole is the former editor of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror newspapers in Zimbabwe. For the past two years he has been living in Leeds as an asylum seeker.
I am looking forward to Christmas as a time to celebrate my new sense of belonging. I have just been accepted by the courts as a refugee and am excited to be free to live my life without the proscriptions that I had to endure over the past 21 months as an asylum seeker.
The mere thought of being able to travel to meet my friends this Christmas without regard to any curfew is one that fills me with immense joy. For me, Christmas will also be a celebration of my recovery of agency. Already, I’ve been invited to speak at a major civil society conference on Zimbabwe in South Africa next year. I feel duty-bound to be involved in the struggle for change in my country. In 2008 I will also be standing in solidarity with my compatriots who face deportation from the UK after the courts ruled to give the government the power to do so.
Caroline Spelman, Chairman of the Conservative party and MP for Meriden
This Christmas will be the first we’ve spent at home in the Midlands for quite a while and I can’t wait. Last year we went to Australia for the cricket and the year before that we joined by brother in law and his family in South Africa.
Of course I have a rose-tinted vision of quality time with the children, country walks and log fires – but the reality will be cooking, washing up and foregoing any hope of a Christmas drink in the certain knowledge one of our children will be requiring a lift somewhere. New Year will be spent in London – all built round the excitement of my youngest son having an ‘out patient’ visit to attend to his broken arm!
Elliot Choueka works at the BBC as a TV producer. He is married to Rosie and lives in North West London. They are expecting their first child at some point in the New Year.
To Islington for a 7.45am start at the Crisis Open Christmas centre for my second year as a volunteer. COC is a mammoth seven day venture offering shelter, warm food, drink and much, much more for two thousand homeless people in London – the 36th year it is being done. As a volunteer I offer myself up as bog-washer, food server, general cleaner, whatever is required. Most importantly (for me) is the opportunity to offer a non-judgmental ear for the guests (that’s what we call the people using the COC services) to talk to. It’s a moving, humbling way to spend one’s Christmas day but well worth it.
Andrew Stephen was appointed US Editor of the New Statesman in 2001, having been its Washington correspondent and weekly columnist since 1998.
This will be the 18th consecutive Christmas I will spend away from Britain, and the Stephen family will be making their usual trek to a house built on a deserted sandy beach in Florida. I found a warm, sunny Christmas and no Boxing Day wildly alien at first: I would desperately rig up an aerial to listen through the static to the BBC World Service relay of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from Cambridge, but the BBC’s disgraceful decision to cease short-wave transmissions to North America soon put a stop to my Christmas Eve fix.
It was the aftermath of 9/11 that made me change my mind about Christmas in Florida, though: for months I could barely sleep in DC because of the F-16s that constantly circled overhead to protect the White House, and I dreamed of the peace and solitude of the tropical family Christmas to which we would flee. Waking up to the sound of lapping waves and then having a swim still seem strangely alien to a curmudgeon like me, but I have to concede that there are certainly worse ways of spending Christmas.
Jo Swinson, MP for East Dunbartonshire
This year for the first time, I will be spending Christmas with my partner’s family rather than my own. No doubt there will be a few different traditions to get to grips with – after all every family is different – but I’m sure there will be plenty of familiar ones as well, mostly involving eating, drinking, and making solemn New Year’s resolutions to take more exercise!
I won’t be leaving the office alone completely over the holidays though. As you’d expect, I’ll be checking the voicemail daily and responding to any urgent situations in my constituency. But for the most part, I’ll use the Christmas break to recharge my batteries ready for a fresh set of challenges in the New Year.
Alan Duncan, Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and MP for Rutland and Melton
I always spend Christmas in the constituency. There is nowhere quite like Rutland at Christmas time. The peaceful and idyllic surroundings are the perfect escape from the hustle and bustle of Westminster. After a hectic year, I will be looking forward to putting my feet up with a mince pie and a glass of mulled wine. My thoughts will then inevitably turn to what will be another important year in politics.
I hope to see stability in Iraq in 2008 and hopefully success in Afghanistan. Let’s also hope that the Middle East Peace process can move forward in a positive direction. At home, in a year when a lot of people will find it increasingly difficult to pay their bills, we will continue to hold this disastrous government to account and strive to bring down the curtain on Gordon Brown’s reign of error.
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