Mairead Lavery

Editor, Irish Country Living

I’ll never forget Christmas 1997, the year a terrible storm hit Ireland.

We were going to Limerick on Christmas Eve to see the lights and do some last-minute shopping. It was blustery at home, but by the time we arrived in the city the wind was so strong that we could barely walk out of the car park. When we arrived back home, we discovered that the glasshouse had blown away and an ash tree had fallen, just missing the house.

We had a gas cooker to make Christmas dinner but there was no heating. We were drawing water from the field and boiling it in saucepans. The house had no light and I just remember feeling so miserable and cold. After two days, I gave up and we headed to Wicklow to stay with my family for a week.

It’s not something I can even laugh about now. It really was a miserable experience, especially with three kids. However, their only concern was that Santa wouldn’t arrive. At least we survived, though we never found a trace of that glasshouse.

Orla Walsh

Presenter of RTÉ News2day

Luckily, since no one in their right mind would put me in charge of the Christmas cooking, I’ve never actually had my own personal disaster, but I’ve witnessed one or two.

Probably the funniest was one year at home. We had a lot of the family visiting so the fridge was completely full. In a stroke of genius, either my mom or my dad decided to put some of the veg and the frozen turkey into the conservatory. The heat wasn’t on in there and it was fairly cold so we figured they would be fine.

Christmas day came, presents were opened, hugs were exchanged and then it was time to start sorting out the dinner. The turkey was brought in from the conservatory only for mom to discover that it was still completely frozen. It was so cold outside that year that it hadn’t had a chance to defrost. Needless to say, no one had turkey ’til St Stephen’s day. It’s a good thing I like potato.

Tom Keogh

Keogh’s Farm

I find wrapping presents really tedious so I usually try to avail of the gift-wrapping service when I’m out shopping. Last Christmas, I had some time on my hands so decided to do it myself. I spent ages fiddling with sticky tape and paper, but I obviously wasn’t concentrating when it came to the gift tags as I somehow put the wrong tags on my presents. Everyone had a great laugh at my expense when my dad opened a gift intended for my wife, Eimear. Let’s just say, I won’t make the same mistake this year.

Cathal Kavanagh,

Head chef, Carton House

I cook all year round at the hotel and usually plan and prepare the Christmas meal on Christmas Day for our guests. Last year, I decided to go against my better judgment and leave the cooking of Christmas dinner at home to a friend. As you can imagine, I’m a perfectionist when it comes to the kitchen and, as I had predicted, the dinner didn’t turn out quite as planned. The turkey was burned to a crisp, the vegetables were soggy and the gravy was like water – nothing like ‘my perfect gravy’.

I actually ended up having to use the leftover ingredients to make us an edible meal. It’s one Christmas I’ll remember forever. Since then, I have been regularly sending my friend recipes which I created for the Carton House cookbook. It’s somewhat of a running joke between us and not an event I’m likely to let him forget soon. CL