Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford will spend Christmas apart “with a sea dividing us” as they go their separate ways over the festive period.
The couple both have elderly mums they want to spend the holidays with. Many couples are facing similar fates after last year saw covid restrictions keep families apart.
“We have this issue now, in that we’ve got a sea dividing us,” says Eamonn, 61. “We often have a dilemma of whether I go to Belfast, whether Ruth comes with me.
“But Ruth wants to be with her mum. My mother is 93 this year. It’s easier for us often to be apart.”
Ruth, 61, tells Woman and Home magazine: “Being apart for Christmas has never been a problem. I wouldn’t be going to Belfast this year, because I need to be with my mum. It’s about family for me.”
Ruth’s mum Joan lives in a care home in Surrey, meaning the presenter was unable to visit her for months last winter.
The pair wept when they were reunited earlier this year.
But the couple will be sure to spend the days - and even months - prior to Christmas getting in the festive spirit.
Ruth admits: “I start Christmas early. I’m that person that when someone says, ‘Have you seen? It’s ridiculous - such-and-such supermarket has already got their Christmas things in, and it’s only July,’ I go, ‘Oh, have they? Which branch?’
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“Eamonn has regressed into childhood,” she adds. “The older he gets, the more he goes back into his childhood at Christmas.”
The couple have been together for 25 years, and married in 2010.
They have a son together Jack, 19. Eamonn has three children from his previous marriage, and became a grandfather for the first time this year when son Declan welcomed a daughter.
Ruth joked he would be known affectionately as “Grumps”, but Eamonn preferred to be called Papa.
“It surprises people, because they look at me and think, ‘He’s too young to be a grandfather,’” he said.
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