Next weekend, she’ll be all over our screens as the glitzy host of the BBC Hogmanay show, bringing in the bells with big energy and big names, including Dundee’s Brian Cox and Barbie actress Sharon Rooney.
Which is why for Fife-born radio DJ Edith Bowman, Christmas is a rare opportunity to “switch off”.
“It’s the only time of year when you really stop,” observes Edith, 49. “Because as soon as I’m getting that countdown in my ear on Hogmanay, I’m in my head going: ‘Here we! Here we! Here we f****** go!’”
This year, Edith and her husband Tom (of English rock band Editors), plus their two sons, Rudy (15) and Spike (10), are spending a well-earned couple of days at their Gloucestershire home before travelling back to her native Anstruther.
But Christmas wasn’t always an oasis of calm for Edith. She grew up “mucking in” at her family’s hotel, the Craw’s Nest.
So throughout her childhood, Christmas was inextricably intertwined with work.
Girls World and nurse’s outfit were firm favourites
“I feel like I’ve had two different experiences of what Christmas can be,” Edith explains.
“When I was really little, on Christmas Eve, mum and dad would finish work after midnight. They would wake me and my brother Alec up at maybe 1am or 2am, after Father Christmas had been.
“We’d come into the living room and our grandparents would be there, it would be rammed with family. I remember opening up my Girls World and my wee nurse’s outfit in the middle of the night surrounded by all these relatives.”
Edith’s parents would head back to the hotel on Christmas Day to serve between 300-400 visitors, including dinner service and a disco in the evening.
And in her teenage years, she was put to work on the Christmas Day shift as a waitress.
‘I was definitely hiding bottles of Champagne’
“It was hilarious, there was never a dull moment!” laughs the former Radio 1 presenter, who describes herself as a “female, Scottish Buddy the Elf”.
“I was still waitressing on Christmas Day while I was at Radio 1, actually. It was the family business, so you mucked in – but I loved it, it was fun.”
With tales of carolling waitresses fighting over “who got to be Bono” and “booze flying around”, the hectic hotel atmosphere sounds more like a party than a shift.
“So many of the staff would just stay for dinner,” Edith recalls. “After we cleared all the tables from dinner service, we’d set tables for us all to have Christmas lunch.
“Somebody would dress up as Santa, everybody would get a present… I was definitely hiding bottles of Champagne when I shouldn’t have been. It was great!”
Since her parents sold the hotel, Edith has been able to experience the more sedate side of Christmas – food comas, telly and board games – which this year will include beer pong, a game she’s discovered she and her son Spike are “Olympic-level champions at”.
Edith ‘the golden child’ Bowman
But she doesn’t regret the hustle and bustle of her early Christmases, saying it instilled her and her brother Alec with a “really good work ethic” without which they wouldn’t be where they are today.
Although she admits the pair, despite their adult successes, regress to childhood dynamics when they return “home to mum and dad’s” for the holidays.
“He’s always taking the p*** out of me, constantly ribbing me,” laughs Edith. “He calls me ‘the golden child’.”
And as far as her own children go, Edith considers herself “so lucky” that her boys get on board with her beloved festivities.
“If Spike could have his way, we’d have the tree up on November 1. He loves Christmas, and I’m definitely in his camp!” she smiles.
“Rudy’s 15, so he’s like ‘Oh, calm down mum’ – but secretly he’s really excited about it, I know he is.”
Edith Bowman will present Hogmanay 2023 this year on BBC1.
Conversation