For Dundee rocker and The View frontman Kyle Falconer, Christmas starts and ends with family.
“I’ve always been mad for Christmas,” admits the 36-year-old dad-of-three.
“I’ve got a massive family. I’ve got lots of nieces but we’re a similar age, so they felt like my siblings,” he explains as his daughter, Winnie, stamps around the in the background, singing and waving a snowglobe.
“We’d phone each other at like 5am and be like ‘What did you get?’ I remember I got a toy T-Rex when I was like seven or eight, but there were no batteries in it and there was no shops open, so I was really sad.
“Pete from The View, our pals Clarky and Chipsy, all the boys from Dryburgh – we used to come round each other’s houses and compare presents.
““I still love it all, but it’s more about the kids now.”
Nowadays, Kyle and his partner Laura are gearing up to spend Christmas with daughters Wylde and Winnie, and their son Jet.
“Laura’s obsessed with Christmas too, so she’s been decorating with the three kids – the whole place is like Santa’s grotto,” Kyle gushes.
“It’s crazy. There’s four Christmas trees around the house, it’s mayhem. She does the elf thing every night too.”
Falconers traded wild parties for ‘heated’ family quiz night
Balancing the rockstar lifestyle with fatherhood is especially hard around the holidays, Kyle admits, as he’s grabbing a couple of days at home in between touring with The View on their biggest tour to date, including two headline dates at the Caird Hall last weekend.
“It’s hard being away, being on the bus in tour mode, and then coming back and waking up at half six,” he explains.
And having lost both his parents before his 22nd birthday, Kyle is no stranger to the melancholy or mixed emotions that the holidays can bring up for people.
“This time of year is always challenging on my brain,” he says candidly. “It’s dark, and it’s freezing. I find it hard to get up in the morning.
“My mum’s remembrance is quite close to Christmas too. But it’s good, because we all come together.”
And where a Falconer gathering was once “a bit mad” in the early days of The View, Kyle says the family Christmases have become less rowdy over the years – until it get to the quiz portion of the evening.
“There was a time when the band first started and everyone was a bit mad – my sisters and my nieces were coming to all the gigs, everyone was drinking a bit much and there was a load of nonsense,” he recalls. “But now it’s pretty good, we all have a big dance.
“I mean, it gets pretty heated at the quiz,” he says with mock seriousness. “It starts off friendly, but it gets a bit ropey!”
Secret ingredient to perfect Christmas? ‘Magic’ macaroni
Indeed, Kyle reveals that a Falconer Christmas still has one very special ingredient – ‘magic’ macaroni.
“We actually have macaroni, because of my gran. We call it Granny’s Magic Secret Recipe,” he laughs. “It’s basically the big macaroni shapes with spaghetti, a pund eh cheese, tomato puree and mustard.
“When I met Laura, and she first came to Dundee for Christmas, she was like ‘Why are you lot eating macaroni with your Christmas dinner?’ This big pile of orange monstrosity.
“Now sometimes my oldest daughter Wylde will go ‘could you please make us granny Elizabeth’s famous macaroni?’ and they just do it because they know it makes me feel happy, but they never eat it.”
Young Kyle was ‘still holding up Santa debate’ at high school
As he thinks about his own children, Kyle admits it makes him sad to think about the kids who might not receive presents this year due to poverty and the cost of living crisis.
“It’s a shame, kids not getting as much,” he says.
“I think it’s good that now folk are saying it’s not just Santa Claus that brings you things, it’s your parents too, because it’s a shame when kids think Santa is bringing some people more stuff than others. That’s a good sense of reality for kids.”
Then again, if it was up to Kyle, he’d preserve the magic of Father Christmas entirely.
“About P7 or first year of high school, I was still holding up the debate round the table. But then my sisters told me the truth.
“To be fair, my kids are already like: ‘Come on, eh?’ but hopefully I can keep it going at least another year.”
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