NIGELLA SAYS IT’S FINE NOT TO BE A FESTIVE GODDESS

“It’s an incredibly high-pressure time of year for women,” says the 48-year-old. “You have cooking combined with family and together they’re enormously incendiary. It would be an extreme act of cruelty to imply you can have a stress- free
Christmas because there’s no such thing.

“Wrapping presents is the thing that sends me over the edge and under the other side. I always get my hair stuck under the Sellotape, which is completely disgusting for the person opening the present.”

But she says there’s no shame in calling the cavalry.

“You don’t have to do the whole Domestic Goddess thing to revel in the solace of the hearth,” she tells Radio Times. “If you want to put up fairy lights everywhere and get pizza delivered, that’s absolutely OK by me.” Phew.