The Countess of Carnarvon at Highclere Castle during the holidays.
And you think your holiday preparations are complicated?
“There are 79 Christmas trees at Highclere” says Lady Carnarvon, chatelaine of one of England’s most famous stately homes, a grand Jacobean estate that has served as setting for Downton Abbey, the hit television series, and this year’s popular movie. The prospect of readying a place the size of Highclere Castle with its some 250 rooms for the holidays might seem daunting to most anyone, excepting Martha Stewart, but in her new book, Christmas at Highclere: Recipes and Traditions from The Real Downton Abbey, Lady Carnarvon reveals with witty charm and behind-the-scenes insights how she manages it all, from orchestrating the numerous Christmas-season events held at the landmark property, to making sure family and friends enjoy a meaningful stay.
The 317-page book focuses on the many weeks of holiday celebrations at the landmark estate.
“Planning is everything,” the countess writes in the book, taking inspiration from no less a master organizer than the late General Eisenhower, as she and her holiday troops prepare Highclere for the season. In addition to tackling the more than six dozen trees and readying the house and grounds, there are day and evening castle tours and receptions, as well as a holiday fair, charity movie screening, book talk, gala dinner and private gatherings to oversee. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day alone, the earl and countess host between 20 and 24 family members and friends.
A holiday gathering at the castle in the famous Saloon.
Yes, there’s a dedicated and efficient staff, but Lady Carnarvon is in the thick of it all, planning menus, making wreaths, tackling the Christmas card list, making sure that everything stays on course, or dealing with last-minute snafus that seem both familiar and yet highly particular to an English stately, like not having enough baubles for your Christmas tree when that tree requires some eight-and-a-half thousand ornaments and you only have six-and-a-half thousand at the ready. (As in the television series, this bauble-eating stunner is on display in the castle’s Saloon.)
When a setting is used for a series or movie that becomes a cultural powerhouse like Downton Abbey has, its original identity can risk being subsumed by, or at least take second place to, its fictional rendering. (There is more to see in Dubrovnik than Game of Thrones locations.) What Christmas At Highclere does so effectively is focus on the rhythms and traditions that defined the estate long before any film crews pitched up, with far-reaching historic lore integrated in a way that never seems like homework to read. “The hardest thing was deciding how to assemble the book,” says Lady Carnarvon, author of well-researched and best-selling tomes about her predecessors, Lady Almina and Lady Catherine, adding how an awareness she was living on a property that has been a home for more than 1000 years, helped inform the content, so that you find intriguing backstories for everything from holidays in the 1400s, making Christmas pudding on “Stir-Up Sunday,” to Christmas and Boxing Day routines that have endured for decades. “We all need rituals and ceremonies to give meaning to our lives,” she writes in the book.
Lord Carnarvon on Christmas Eve.
Recipes are plentiful, culled from classic and updated historic dishes served at Highclere, among them Christmas cake and Christmas pudding, scones, a scone cake, mince pies, roast turkey, trifle, and contemporary favorites of Lady Carnarvon including colorful winter salads and a Christmas quiche made with brie and cranberry. As for the actual Christmas Day menu, Lady Carnarvon says she likes to keep it “gloriously, exactly” the same from year to year. “The world seems to go faster and faster as I get older, and I quite like the fact that the menu doesn’t change.”
A Christmas tea table.
With so many holiday events to mastermind from November to January, Lady Carnarvon says the seasonal moments she mosts enjoy are those “when I’ve done all the planning and I can sit down. I enjoy going to church on Christmas, seeing everyone together, hearing the buzz, the chatter, laughter, and the music and singing. For thousands of years we’ve talked and sang together. It’s the root of who we are as people, an anchor.” After services she looks forward to that classic Christmas lunch, listening to the Queen’s Christmas speech, and going for a walk on the estate’s grounds, the day serving as a welcome respite from the non-stop bustle of the preceding weeks.
Christmas at Highclere is a purposely low-tech affair. In the book Lady Carnarvon writes how during past Christmases the family watched the Downton Abbey holiday special, but the castle has only one television, and “we have to see if it’s working,” she notes without remorse. Guest bedrooms have radios, magazines and CD players rather than digital devices, and while Lady Carnarvon says she well understands that there are instances when you need to be tethered to a cell phone, “I think it’s important to be a person and talk to someone instead of having some gadget in your hand all the time.” (Somewhere, Lady Violet, fearless foe of swivel chairs and gramophones, is applauding.)
In addition to offering wonderful images of the castle and grounds in winter, a selection of very tempting recipes and entertaining advice, the book, for all its engaging hindsight, comes across as compellingly modern, underscoring the increasingly vital need, with all the lightning-speed distractions of the digital era, to experience the slower, more mindful and spiritual pleasures of the holiday season. “I’m always hoping people will take time for a time out and not rush back to work,” Lady Carnarvon says. “That they give themselves the space, which I think we all need, rather than [running about] in haste from pillar to post.”
The castle's canines take a break.
The holiday calendar at Highclere is a long one, reaching from Advent to the Epiphany (January 6) and through to the lesser-known celebration of Candlemas (40 days after Christmas). Lady Carnarvon mentions how awareness of Candlemas, one of the oldest feasts of the Christian church (marked by the blessing of candles) “which I had forgotten about, helped me find a more peaceful way forward and start to the New Year.” She offers to send further thoughts about these post-Christmas holidays, and in an email says that while “packing away decorations on the Epiphany can be rather anti-climactic,” she likes to focus on the meaning of the word, which “pre-dates Christianity, being Greek in origin and associated with the appearance of dawn, of light, as opposed to darkness. Candlemas helps us find our way through the dark days of winter. We all need things and days to look forward to, and they are there. We just have to remember to look.”
Highclere Castle Gin, which debuted in the U.S. this year, is made with botanicals cultivated on the ... [+]
In 2020 Lady Carnarvon and Highclere have a lot to look forward to. Plans are in the works for a big VE celebration on May 8th, marking the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. She has started on her next book, which will offer a seasonal overview of life at Highclere with more recipes, gardening advice and lifestyle content. Highclere Castle Gin, made with botanicals cultivated on the estate, made a successful debut this summer in the U.S. and continues to expand its markets. And, of course, starting in mid-fall this legendary estate will gear up once again for another glorious holiday season.
