It’s the most wonderful time of the year, sometimes. At others, Christmas is almost comically stressful with the pressure to buy gifts, cook elaborate meals, decorate, go to parties (without catching a cold), see a carol concert or two and generally have the most magical and more postcard-perfect time. Naturally, this often leads to a number of ridiculous Christmas fails.
This writer could reel off a list of things that didn’t quite go to plan at Christmas. Off the top of my head, in recent years, I have been asked to style a purely decorative, non-working fireplace for some photos for Liberty, with garlands made from fabric tied loosely into bows. When the store shared the photo on their own Instagram, I was horribly trolled by their followers for my apparent intention to start a house fire (and in general, for how ugly they deemed it to be and how talentless I am). Trying to explain that it was purely decorative became so stressful that I asked them to take down the post.
Also last year, I felt anxious on Christmas Eve that I hadn’t been to any plays or ballets and perhaps that was the thing that would make me feel festive, so I dragged my other half out to the most awkward carol concert imaginable. Turns out there was no choir or orchestra – just one man encouraging the half-empty audience to sing along to the organ while a few kids ran around in front. We were trapped in the middle of a row and had to wait for the whole thing to finish before we could escape. This wasn’t in a church (as you might be picturing), it was a ticketed event in a hall and we’d actually paid for the pleasure.
Then there was the year when we decided to spend Christmas in Edinburgh. I only had one requirement, that our Airbnb must have a functioning fire (as I’ve never had a fireplace in my own home). We arrived on Christmas Eve morning after a long train journey and went shopping for a small real Christmas tree, which we were unable to find anywhere, so I ended up buying a little plastic thing to put on a shelf. Then we realised the log burner in our little cottage wasn’t actually in use, and they had never bothered to say this in the description. Plus the ‘sofa’ was actually more of a one-and-a-half seater bench. We definitely weren’t going to be roasting any chestnuts in that house.
I could continue, but instead, we’ve asked a bunch of our friends in the design world to share their own memories of Christmas fails in years gone by…
Sophie Rowell, interior designer and founder of Côte de Folk
‘My older brother was a very successful photographer in the 1980s and he always bought us the most incredible gifts at Christmas that would be amazingly wrapped or hanging from helium balloons. This particular year, when I was around 10 or 11, he bought my sister this giant framed poster and it was so enormous that even my outstretched arms couldn’t reach from one side to the other. I remember walking into the room and it being in the way, so I tried to grab it and shuffle it over to another wall and I lost my grip. I dropped the poster, then fell on top of it – smashing the glass and the frame. So here was this impressive and expensive new gift for my sister, and before anyone else had even opened anything, I’d already broken it. I still remember running straight out of the house and up the street as I was so upset and mortified about it.’
Gemma Moulton, founder of East London Cloth
‘One Christmas morning, we woke up and bundled downstairs ready to start the day’s festivities, but were stopped in our tracks by an odd smell. To our shock and disbelief, our beloved family dog had managed to get into and eat an entire tub of Celebrations, including the wrappers. He had then proceeded to empty the contents of his stomach across the sitting room, including over our wrapped presents. Poor Jasper was not in good shape, so instead of the usual Christmas Day order of events, my parents had to spend the morning tracking down an emergency vet.’
Olympia and Ariadne Irving, co-founders of Carolina Irving & Daughters
‘One year we stayed at our grandmother’s house in Paris for Christmas and the fridge stopped working. Thankfully, it was freezing cold and snowing outside, so we just moved everything that needed to stay chilled onto the scaffolding outside. We were shucking and eating oysters leaning out of the window. The snow served as the perfect ice bucket – I don’t think we’ve ever had such cold Champagne!’
Christian Bense, interior designer
‘I’m a big Christmas fan and always have been. I’m quite obsessive about it going exactly to plan, and even as a child, it was very important to me that we kept our family traditions. It felt like such a special and sacred time of year and we would always travel to stay with my gran and cousins, so we would be literally “driving home for Christmas”. Anyway, one year, my older sister was going to be overseas with her boyfriend, so for the first time, we decided to stay at home on the farm, just us, minus my sister. I was only about 13 at the time, but I felt very protective of our annual Christmas routine and I didn’t want it to change. I was being quite dramatic and I really wasn’t feeling it – I thought we might as well cancel Christmas entirely if we weren’t going to my gran’s. Despite the disappointment, I did everything I could to make it feel like a big occasion and even though I was only a child (and I was gutted about the whole thing), I still went shopping and chose really thoughtful gifts for my family to try and “rescue” the day. Cue Christmas morning, when I opened my gift from my sister and it was olives and blue cheese. In hindsight, it was probably a sweet attempt to buy me something sophisticated, but I actually cried under the Christmas tree and I still don’t think my family truly understands the gut-wrenching pain that I felt at the time. It’s hilarious to think about it now, and every year since, my family has continued to buy me olives and blue cheese as a joke.’
Cathy Nordström, textile designer
‘A few years ago, my in-laws rented a large chalet in Megève for all of us to celebrate Christmas and enjoy a week of skiing together. The only problem was that there was no snow at all. None. One week, 16 people (including eight small children) and no snow. On the day we left, there was an epic snowfall that led to us all missing our flight home.’
Chloe Willis, decorator at Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler
‘We had two years running where the youngest member of the crew pulled over the Christmas tree and generations of baubles were smashed. Needless to say, focus has been on replacing them with pretty painted wooden and tole ones ever since”
Rémy Mishon, decoration editor at House & Garden
‘As teenagers, we would loot my best friend’s parents’ alcohol cupboard (naturally) and top up what we’d taken with water, so no one would know. One Christmas, with generations of family gathered, the climax of the meal came as my friend’s mother doused the Christmas pudding in brandy, struck a match and jumped back for the flames to ensue. Except they didn’t. Needless to say, we weren’t so clever after all.’
Meta Coleman, interior designer
‘Every year, I’m a bit slow to get our Christmas decorations up and every year people seem to do it earlier and earlier. My mom would always tell us stories of her childhood in Germany and how magical it was when her parents put the tree up on Christmas Eve. That might have had something to do with it, but mostly it’s the amount of energy it takes to do it all. Anyway, last year, we thought we’d get started with our tree shopping on a reasonable date this year in early December. After dropping our children off at various activities, my husband and I proceeded to look for a nearby Christmas tree lot, run from the front yard of a family home. We drove around for about 20 minutes and finally found it. At last! I immediately thought I’d found the perfect tree – it was about six-foot tall, but upon further inspection, around two-and-a-half feet of the top was just one single vertical branch. Charlie Brown’s tree looked pretty good in comparison. We continued to survey the lot and noticed every other tree was only about three-foot tall. With no desire to go elsewhere by this point, we picked the best three-foot-tall tree we could find and went home. Our children kept asking us. “Is this our tree?!” “Really?” Not wanting to admit defeat, my husband and I leaned into it and said we had decided to put our tree on a table and light candles, like they do in Germany. We used LED candles and it made for a lot less effort digging around for ornaments – the decorating took mere minutes. Hopefully I haven’t scarred the children too much with my stubborn laziness!’
Domenica Marland, founder of Domenica Marland Home
‘For a Christmas lunch at home, I attempted to try a new place name decoration idea by baking my own gingerbread with everyone’s names artistically iced onto their individual biscuit (like you’d see on Pinterest). I baked all the gingerbread and purchased the icing pens for the names. To my horror, the colours and the texture didn’t work, so the result looked as if my four-year-old nephew had decorated them. I eventually gave up and put them out as a joke – thankfully my guests loved them!’
Caroline Kent, founder of Scribble and Daub
‘I scored an amazing vintage glass bauble haul in the Oxfam shop on Marylebone High Street just before a Christmas event I was doing for Conran. Huge and beautiful, hand-painted, bright pink mercury glass – so, so lovely and a complete bargain! I was so excited to put them on the tree at home with all my other treasured vintage and family heirloom decorations. I came down the next morning and the tree was on the floor (I suspect my other half’s substandard tree installation was to blame and still haven’t quite forgiven him!). My previously beautiful decorations were now just shards all over the floor. I’ve still got them in a box somewhere, I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away. I miss them every year when I decorate the tree!’
Leanne Kilroy, interior designer and founder of Good Bones
‘Every year, my mother-in-law throws a huge Christmas party on December 23, and every year, she makes an enormous amount of delicious smoked salmon in her smoker. A few years ago, she made some extra salmon to serve on Christmas Day and hid it away in a second refrigerator. My brother-in-law and his friends stayed up late after the party and, scrounging for leftovers, found the smoked salmon and ate all of it. She was incredibly annoyed and almost cancelled Christmas dinner!’
Laura Jackson, presenter and co-founder of Glassette
‘I made the mistake of hoping I could trust my children to be careful around the Christmas decorations. We’re not even halfway through the month and they have already smashed 13 baubles!’
Lonika Chande, interior designer
‘I’m sure this happened to lots of people, but one year we all got Covid and Christmas totally passed us by. We were meant to be hosting the whole family, and instead, they dropped us a hamper of jams, honey, Berocca and tissues on the front garden wall. I used the unexpected free time to potty-train our toddler instead. Not very festive but quite resourceful, I thought, given I’d been putting it off and had no excuse as we couldn’t leave the house.’
Tori Murphy, fabric designer
‘A couple of years ago, I forgot to take the Yorkshire puddings out of the oven, and on Boxing Day morning, there they were, still in there and burnt to charcoal. I was surprised I forgot them as they’re actually my favourite part of the meal!’
