THIS year, one of the most exotic observations of the religious festival that is Christmas might be to witness the Fiaccole di Natale, the Festival of Torches, in the winding, steep streets of the wine town of Montaicino in Tuscany. With the olive harvest safely in, the temperatures cold but crisp, the beautiful province is never more beautiful than now.
And, of course, you will have to hang around for New Year, which the Tuscans like to announce with firecrackers and sky rockets, all the better to chase away the ghosts of the old year.
If you want to enjoy this sort of blissful indulgence, than you had better plot and plan your own trip. Christmas breaks abroad are now so popular that most of the package deals, according to several travel agents, are booked out even before the brochures are printed.
One of the great holiday success stories of recent years has been skiing in Andorra in the Pyrenees. With excellent slopes which suit beginners, intermediates and the very slickest operators, and with consistent snow until as late as March, Andorra is now one of the key ski destinations. It is untroubled by the snobbery of many of the Mitleleuropean resorts and, with prices as low as £665 for a week's skiing and half board, it is little wonder that many Irish people now take to the hills, rather than the hearth, at Christmas.
Why do so many of us want to get away, at a time which we think of as quintessentially home time? I think it is perhaps because Christmas has become such a palaver here, such a ritual over so many days, that we like the fact that the Europeans spend so little time on it.
The Italians take a couple of days for Christmas, a day off at New Year, and that's it. It is possible to be in France and to hardly notice the holiday.
But it is also the difference, of course. Our Christmases are now highly regularised and ritualised, highly familiar. A few years ago, while skiing in Austria, one of the highlights of the holiday was not just a stoic Midnight Mass, but the tour afterwards with the villagers around the village graveyard, illuminated in the freezing night by thousands of eerie candles, an intense and unforgettable glimpse into another country's respect for both the dead and the old year. Next day, it was back onto the piste.
And there is something wonderfully enticing about the idea of a holiday in Prague, let's say, at Christmas time, trawling the markets with their barrels of live carp the traditional Christmas speciality for sale, and their hot wines and punch to ward off the cold. Vienna would provide a similarly gilded city wonderland. Or even, after one has been through so many local family holidays, just getting away to the beach. That's the beach in Mombassa, Kenya, by the way.
But, if it is impossible to get away, and if the season of telly `n' belly which beckons is all too much to contemplate, then how can we make this the year when it is all going to be different? A complete change. Something new. Active even. And smacking of quality, creativity, exuberance.
So, what should the script be?
Well, consider this.
The O'Callaghan family's Longueville House, near Mallow in north Cork, is staying open this year until December 21st, and offering a range of Christmas menus from now until then. William O'Callaghan's cooking is a joy and as far away from Christmas glop as you can get. Prices for the menus range from £22 to £30 wonderful value for cooking by a chef whom some French friends recently described as "the most promising culinary artist to come".
Good enough, but if you decide to disport yourselves down to Longueville, do note that you can stay overnight in this lovely house at a special B&B rate of £35 pps. Blissful food Christmas cheer, and no driving. Heaven.
Further south, in Kinsale, Raoul and Seiko de Gendre's Vintage restaurant is offer ing both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve gourmet dinners smoked roast barbar duck wild smoked salmon with buckwheat blinis: turkey legs filled with mushrooms and dried fruit fresh turbot with confit of shallot and Pinot Noir sauce, are just some of the promised delights. Numbers are limited, so book early. The full dinner menu price £37.50, with a three course dinner available at £31.50.
Midlanders who want to enjoy some of the best cooking in the country have a wonderful chance to see out the old year in spiffing style when Eugene and Breda McSweeney confect their New Year's Eve gala dinner in Kilkenny's Lacken House home cured salmon with a hot colcannon potato cake sautee of wood pigeon with Puy lentils and a madeira just roast duckling flavoured with spices pineapple with a rum flavoured butterscotch sauce. At £35, the dinner is great value, for some of the most precise and enjoyable cooking in Ireland.
But what if you want to actually escape for the holiday it sell? Well, if you haven't already booked, now is the time to do it. Some of the country houses who have made a feature of opening over the season are already long booked out Rosemary Kennan of Roundwood House in Co Laois is even running a cancellations list this year, with a gaggle of people hoping that some of, those booked in for the period between Christmas and New Year might drop out.
There is still time to snap up some of the remaining places in Paul and Linda Saunders's elegant Old Rectory in Wicklow town, and their three spacious, stylish new rooms have made this house even more welcoming. It is some years since Paul and Linda last opened for Christmas, and their intention is to create a house party atmosphere between the 24th and the 26th, with Ms Saunders's great floral cooking, roast turkey and chestnuts, breakfast in bed, and a trip to Leopardstown to give you a chance to lose some of your hard earned folding stuff.
DO note also that the Rectory is featuring cookery classes during December, with classes on Christmas cooking to help you over the problems of the big day, and Christmas banquets feature in the restaurant on Wednesday and Saturday nights.
Prices for the Christmas break are £360 pps, which includes some of the wines which will be served with dinner.
Close to The Old Rectory is one of the best known Christmas hotels, Tinakilly House in Rathnew, where Bill Power kicks off matters by offering a hot toddy in the bar while they take care of your luggage, and with that sort of a start it promises to be cosseting care all the way through. The Christmas programme runs from the 24th to the 27th, and the New Year programme takes over from Monday 30th, to a lazy checkout at noon on New Year's Day with your head still reeling from the Irish hogmanay and sing along of the night before.
Christmas rates in Tinakilly run from £360 pps for three nights full board over Christmas, and range up to £570 pps for a five night break in the Admiral's suite. New Year prices are similar, ranging from £220 pps for two nights, with a five night break costing £475 pps.
If your idea of bliss is a hotel with a pool and leisure centre where you can chill out while the children are taken care of, there are a number of choices.
Acton's Hotel in Kinsale has three day packages over Christmas and the New Year, with Christmas costing £297 pps and the New Year £185 pps. The Blarney Park, outside Cork, whose leisure centre is renowned, also has Alice Taylor arriving on Christmas Day to give a reading from her books, but rooms are already very limited. The Christmas package in Blarney costs £299 pps for three days, with children under 12 costing £75, and there is even a trip to the panto in Cork.
The New Year break for three days costs £199, and single travellers should note that because the Blarney Park has found that many elderly folk who live alone now like to get away for Christmas, there is no single supplement.
Up north, the Great Northern Hotel in Bundoran is open for the season, with a three day Christmas programme costing £280 pps, and the New Year programme costing £142 pps. In Cavan, the grandiose Slieve Russell Hotel has a three day package over Christmas which costs £320 pps, with children in the room costing £145.
One of the great doyennes of the Christmas season is Francis Brennan's Park Hotel in Kenmare, Co Kerry, which has just signed off its first 100 years in style, winning the award for Hotel of the Year, from the Auto mobile Association. Typically, Mr Brennan praised his staff "who constantly strive for perfection in all that they do", when a less modest chap would have mentioned that it is his own shining example which is the keynote of an altogether extraordinary hotel.
Anyone who wants to see Mr Brennan's magic at work should note that The Park will be open for Christmas from December 23rd until January 2nd, with a three day programme of fun for Christmas, including a formal gala dinner, and a two day break planned for the New Year. Prices for Christmas start from £415 pps, with a supplement of £15 per night for a superior room, and £50 per night for a suite. The New Year package costs £285 pps.
On the other side of the country, I reckon a programme of post Christmas walking, complemented by the spiffing breakfasts and the great cooking of Eoin Wall, in Hanora's Cottage, in Waterford's Nire Valley, would be just the ticket to see in the New Year. The valley is impossibly beautiful and imposingly splendid for walking, and the Wall family offers a range of options, ranging from a four night stay which includes evening meals, packed lunches and what might perhaps be the biggest breakfast in any B&B in Ireland, for £150 pps, with three guided walks costing £21.
There will also be mulled wines to warm you up, Irish coffees at night, and the local pubs to enjoy. I cannae take any more bliss, cap'n. Computer heads can contact the family on hiking indigo.ie.
An equally elemental experience is on offer at Skibbereen's unique Liss Ard Lake Lodge in west Cork to see in the New Year, when there will be a night tour to the crater in the sky garden, and also the lighting of the lake. Prices are very keen at this time of year the New Year night costs £125 pps, with additional nights costing £90 and the cooking is extraordinary.
Design heads who love Liss Ard will love another gorgeous house which will be open for the New Year, Dan Mullane's Echo Lodge in Ballingarry, Co Limerick, while west coasters should consider the delightful embrace not to mention hospitality of Mark and Dec Keogh's Norman Villa in Salthill, Galway. Mark and Dec will be open for Christmas, with a programme running for two days at a cracking rate of £125 pps, for cracking cooking and cracking fun.