Turkey and all the trimmings, boxes of Quality Street and homemade mince pies… plus a few more unusual options. We asked some of our friends what food sums up the festive season for them.

“Growing up, there was always a debate in our house about whether to make bread sauce, as only half the family like it. I always thought it was the strangest creation – a whole onion, speckled with cloves simmering away in milk and bay leaves. I am now the biggest fan and would be distraught if we started questioning making it these days.”
   
Flora Shedden, baker and cookery writer

“My mum cooked everything from scratch, and I have vivid memories of helping her bake mince pies: the smell of pure Christmas as they came out of the oven. I also got very excited when she made the Christmas cake as I was allowed to lick the spoon when she’d finished. No waste in our house!”


   
Marianne Jones, editor and podcaster, @mariannejonesuk

“I grew up in a multicultural household, with influences from America, Germany and the Philippines, and we lived in Switzerland, so we took our favourite traditions from all those places. Christmas Eve was the best. Traditional Swiss raclette – acres of melted cheese over potatoes, with pickles on the side. And for afters, a classic Filipino dessert, Maja Blanca. It’s a sweet, creamy coconut and condensed milk pudding… with sweetcorn in. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it! It’s amazing.”


   
Geneve Anderson, The White Company’s Lifestyle Writer

“We were not a foodie house, yet food was a highlight of my childhood Christmas. The house would be filled with what I considered wildly exotic fayre: Bombay Mix, Vienetta, Elizabeth Shaw Mint Crisps. My mum always attempted a Christmas cake, with varying levels of success. My sister and I weren’t interested in how it tasted though; we were far more excited by the tin of gaudy 1970s decorations that we were allowed to press into the icing. We knew the Big Day was nearly upon us once we’d wedged the wonky holly berries, fir trees, snowman and Santa in place.”


   
Lynne Hyland, health and beauty editor

“Smoked salmon at brunch – as well as other fish: prawns and rollmops. Nobody was very keen on Christmas pudding, so instead we had a wonderful friend who always baked a flour-free chocolate roulade, filled with brandy-laced cream. Delicious.”

   
Claudia Baillie, design and interiors journalist

“Being Italian, panettone is Christmas for me. We used to have a ‘Panettone season’ essentially running for the entire month of December – any excuses to eat it: breakfast, lunch, teatime, dinner and snacking on it in between. We would also gift to all our friends and family (often with a bottle of prosecco).”



Dani Golfieri, The White Company Senior Designer

“I was born in London, but have a Nigerian background so Christmas was always a blend of both cultures. Roast turkey alongside Nigerian specialities: jollof rice, spicy meat and fried plantain. Now I tend to have a roast beef lunch with my husband and daughter on Christmas Day, then we all have a Nigerian one with my family a few days later.”
   
Busola Evans, interiors writer

“The smell of homemade baking. My mum loved to cook and we always got to make an early wish stirring the Christmas cake and pudding at the end of October. The allure of an ’80s snowball classic topped with a glacé cherry in a tall, coloured glass tumbler – not much has changed.”


   
Ali Heath, interiors expert and author

“My mum’s Christmas pudding is so good even people who hate Christmas pudding like it. Instead of being dark and bitter, it’s light and delicious – with no flour, which keeps it incredibly fruity. The recipe, by Jocelyn Dimbleby, was in The Telegraph about 20 years ago. When we moved house, we lost it and I spent two years tracking it down (I wrote to Jocelyn, and trawled years of Telegraph back copies). It must be served with Hard Sauce (a slightly fancy brandy butter). In our house, we hold no truck with people saying they don’t like Christmas pudding: it’s that or nothing.”
   
Octavia Lillywhite, The White Company’s Fashion and Lifestyle Editor

“Nothing quite said Christmas like my mum’s mini Christmas-pudding cakes, made from chocolate-slice mix and topped with white chocolate and ‘holly’ made from coloured icing. Otherwise, we were a traditional turkey kind of family, with all the trimmings and plenty of Quality Street chocolates.”


   
Jane Knight, travel editor