It’s the most wonderful time of the year – Christmas in Chelsea! The festive period in SW3 involves many traditions the lower classes would not be accustomed to, from stomping through forestland to hack down trees for the staff to decorate, ice skating at the Bluebird while furiously bitching about someone (a new Olympic sport surely?) to sitting in a Mayfair cafe drinking hot chocolate wearing coats made of the skins of flayed plebs.
What could be more Christmassy than terrifying German aristo Sophie Hermann lecturing the assembled poshos about Knecht Ruprecht and simultaneously whipping them with some tree bark? Or watching Icelandic model Frederick Ferrier "treating" an audience to a sombre reading of Feliz Navidad (perhaps not the original version) while looking like a hamster peeking out of some cotton wool?
The Chelsea set need this time to rest their weary souls and unwind after an intense year of back-to-back holidaying, boozing it up and on a serious note, having to endure the on-going break-up saga between backcombed bombshell Frankie Gaff and miniature Klaus Kinski double Jamie Laing.
Jamie and Frankie have been busy boring up the screen with the most dull, adolescent break up since Joey and Dawson decided to stop swapping videos. They don’t want to be a couple but neither wants to see the other dip their toe back into the shallow, dangerously incestuous dating pool of Chelsea – one must only date within the postcode of course. Subsequently, they’ve been parading around a selection of faceless, flip-top headed fools in front of each other to stoke their jealousy.
This long drawn out affair culminated in one of the show’s classic Last Suppers – a Made in Chelsea speciality where all cast members gather at a dinner party that’s organised for the most contrived reasons, like someone’s pot bellied pig being elected to parliament or Daddy’s embezzlement sentence being reduced.
It’s really just an excuse for the issues from previous shows to be addressed in the most dramatic fashion. Sworn frenemies stare into the middle distance and then spitefully snipe at each other across the canapés, a drink will usually be thrown, a new relationship will be forensically dissected, someone with a floppy haircut will emit a laugh so posh it sounds like its in Latin and inevitably a person will flee the table in tears.
Frankie closed the previous week’s show by saying she never wanted to see Jamie again, which is impossible as they only exist within the confines of Chelsea and would obviously disintegrate if they moved anywhere outside the Royal Borough of Kensington.
Thankfully this being a Christmas special, the two patched things up and hugged it out at an elaborate party ready to start this laborious cycle again just in time for the New Year’s Eve episode. It’s a Christmas miracle!
