Kirstie Allsop says Location pal Phil Spencer gets her same Christmas present every year

Kirstie Allsopp, known for her DIY Christmas creations, is swapping her traditional British festivities for a lavish New York Christmas this year. For the first time ever, the TV presenter, along with her partner Ben Andersen and their sons Bay, 17, and Oscar, 15, will be celebrating the holidays in the famously festive city.

"We're in a hotel – I've never been to New York for Christmas so I'm beside myself with excitement," she shares excitedly. "I picked this hotel in March, which looks like the most Christmassy hotel. I must remember to double, double, double check the booking!"

The family has big plans for their holiday in the Big Apple. "We're going to do it all. We're going to go to a basketball match, we're going to go skating. I want to do the Rockettes [Radio City Music Hall's dance troupe], the kids are less keen on that. We may have to negotiate that one."

However, Kirstie reveals that the decision to spend Christmas in the States wasn't originally planned. It was a result of a mix-up with her kids' travel plans. "To be absolutely honest, my son was going on a school ski trip and we were spending Christmas somewhere else, where we often go for Christmas with friends," she explains.

"I realised I couldn't get him from that place to that place, so I was like, 'Right. How do I make this work?'"

"I will walk down to the hairdressing salon in the hotel and have my hair done for a Christmas blow-dry," she laughs. "And then I will drift out. I mean, what do you usually do on Christmas Eve? Fret, wrap, panic the whole thing. So it will be a miracle. I'm really excited about that."

"I lay on the floor for 20 minutes, the ambulance man picked me up, did tests, and they said, 'Look, you haven't got a major spinal injury, but you've obviously done something, so you should probably go for an X-ray,'" she remembers.

"I went back up the stairs and by that time this adrenaline high, which I'd never had before, kicked in. Oh my God, that stuff's amazing," she says. "I was laughing, I was chatty. Gus, my lovely work driver, took me to hospital, and I was lying across the back seat and I was literally chatting away, telling stories."

She also spilled the beans on a special Christmas tradition between her and her Location Location Location co-star Phil Spencer. "Phil gets me the same present every year. Should he change the present he gives me every year, I'd be horrified – it's a ham," she said, explaining how much she loves having a Christmas ham in the house.

Kirstie also mentioned that it's been a tough year for Phil, who tragically lost both his parents in a car accident in August. She said she regularly checks in with him and his wife if she's worried about him.

"We don't hang out outside of work because we are together all the time so our other halves need us back. But we're welcome in each other's homes at any time and we talk to each other all the time."

"It is the relationship that it looks like – partly because after this length of time, somebody somewhere would have found the crack," she adds. "We're both one in four, we're both very close to our siblings. We have got a lot in common."

As for Kirstie's hot Christmas DIY tip for this year, it's time to grab a glue gun and some broken baubles for outdoor decor.

"I realised how incredibly weatherproof Christmas decorations are," she says. "I have all my Christmas decorations in clear plastic boxes but there's always the ones that I can't chuck out or they're missing their tops. Get a glue gun, shove all of those on something, shove them outside and they're going to look fantastic!"

* This article was crafted with the help of an AI engine, which speeds up OK!'s editorial research and applies it to article templates created by journalists in our newsrooms. An OK! editor reviewed this content before it was published. You can report any errors to [email protected]

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