Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood has opened up about his early Christmas memories in Australia and his festive dinner that was reheated in a microwave

Strictly Come Dancing’s own Craig Revel Horwood has lit up Stamford with the festive sparkle of Christmas lights, not far from his King’s Cliffe residence. However, not every holiday season has been as bright for the Aussie-born judge. He shared memories of sweltering Yuletides and microwave dinners with The Guardian back in 2014. He reminisced: “I grew up in Australia, so Christmas was hot. One year all my chocolates melted together in my Christmas stocking.”

Craig also described his unique family dinners: “In the 1970s the microwave changed dinner forever. My dad, who was in the navy, would make dinner in the morning, plate up a meal for each of us and put it under clingfilm with our name on top. He’d put the plates in a row by the microwave and at lunch he’d heat them. We’d line up and be served at three minute intervals and then file off to the table. If your dinner was the first one microwaved it was pretty lonely when you sat down to eat!”

Craig has remembered his previous Christmases
Fast-forward to a 2022 interview with The Independent, where Craig spilled the beans on his most cherished and most regrettable Christmas gifts. His best present? “The best Christmas present I’ve ever received was my GI Joe helicopter,” he says with glee. And the dud gift that still sticks out? “The worst was a tea towel from Australia worth £1.99 and I had to pay £20 at the Post Office to get it out of customs.”

SIMILAR ARTICLES TO THISCraig Revel Horwood swapped his home Down Under for London’s bright lights in 1989, and these days he lives with his fiancé, plant wizard Jonathan Myring, in a sprawling seven-bedroom pad in King’s Cliffe, Northamptonshire. The loved-up pair, who swiped right into each other’s lives on Tinder, have pinned their hopes on a 2027 wedding after getting engaged back in 2020.

Craig Revel Horwood with fellow judges Motsi Mabuse, Shirley Ballas and Anton Du Beke

But it’s over in Stamford, Lincolnshire where Craig had the glitzy job of switching on the Christmas lights this year. Addressing the crowd at Red Lion Square on 21 November with the light switch plunger in hand, he declared: “I’ve just moved here, well three years ago darling, and I absolutely adore it. I’m very excited about plunging this baby so we are out of darkness and into glamour.”

A bit of drama unfolded as some bulbs stubbornly stayed off, prompting Horwood’s quip: “someone’s pulled our plug,” but swiftly resolved when he gave the plunger an extra shove, admitting: “It was me – I didn’t push it down enough.”