The Holidays

  What’s the perfect holiday for each of the Astrominal Starsign’s Twelve animals. Twelve star signs. One tragically small office kitchenette. And one very long December. Your star sign doesn’t just decide whether you’re a morning person or why you can’t keep a houseplant alive. It decides how you do Christmas: what you buy, what you secretly expect back, what your tree looks like, and exactly how Christmas Day goes off the rails. The Astrominals have done the research, mostly by accident. Find your sign. Then apologise to your family. Fire Signs Earth Signs Air Signs Water Signs Fire Signs Arri the Rhino (Aries) — The Christmas That Starts in November Gifts: All bought on 1st November in a single fourteen-minute sprint through a shopping centre, using the horn as a trolley. No sizes were checked. Everybody gets a kettlebell. Toys come pre-assembled because the instructions “were slowing him down”, and every box contains three spare screws, which is how you know Arri has built it. Expects to receive: Nothing, technically, because at 11:58pm on Christmas Eve he “just checks one” and then goes through the pile under the tree like a woodchipper with feelings. Decorating: The tree goes up at 6am on 1st December. It goes up quite literally, through the ceiling. “It’s a statement.” The lights are plugged in before they are untangled, and they now form a single glowing knot the size of a family car. The neighbours call it “the comet”. Christmas Day: Dinner is served at 9:15am. The turkey is “rare, it’s fine”. Arri wins every board game by flipping the board, which he records as a victory. By 2pm he is asleep standing up, still wearing an oven glove. Fire Signs Leo the Lion (Leo) — The Christmas Starring Leo Gifts: Expensive, enormous and gold. The bow is bigger than the box. The box is bigger than the car. Inside it, a framed portrait of Leo. You will hang it. He will check. Expects to receive: Admiration, wrapped. A standing ovation every time he enters a room. He is quietly furious with the Christmas tree for getting so much attention, and has been known to stand next to it, slightly in front, at an angle. Decorating: Lights visible from space. A thirty-foot inflatable Leo on the front lawn, waving. There is no star on top of his tree. There is Leo on top of his tree. Christmas Day: At 3pm he delivers his own Christmas Day Address to the household, with a teleprompter. He puts on the paper crown from the cracker and genuinely does not take it off until mid-February. He wins the Christmas Jumper Competition that he organised, judged and sponsored. Fire Signs Sagg the Zebra (Sagittarius) — The Christmas in Three Time Zones Gifts: Experiences, never objects. A skydiving voucher for Gran. A camel ride. A ticket to somewhere nobody in the family has the right passport for. All bought at the airport on Christmas Eve and wrapped, partially, in a map. Expects to receive: Anything except socks. Socks are a cage. Socks are a fence for your feet. Decorating: Doesn’t, technically. Sagg’s decorations are a single string of fairy lights wrapped around a backpack, plus a tiny tree in every country visited this year. The stripes get a festive upgrade too: one silver, one black, one silver, one black. Christmas Day: Three Christmas dinners in three different time zones. Arrives late with a brilliant story, leaves early for a better one. Invents new rules halfway through every board game, and somehow they’re more fun. Every adventure, sadly, is spoiled by Sagg not reading the small print, which is how Christmas 2024 was spent in a Norwegian sheep shed.   Earth Signs Taur the Bull (Taurus) — The Christmas That Has Not Changed For Many, Many Years Gifts: Expensive. Gloriously, irresponsibly expensive. Cashmere socks. A candle that smells of “log fire and old money”. A hamper so heavy it has to be delivered by forklift. Taur believes a gift should be something you can touch, taste or sit on, ideally all three. He also buys everyone the same present every year, because he got it right in 2014 and why would you change a winning recipe? Expects to receive: Exactly what he got last year. If you deviate, he says “Lovely” in a voice that drops the room temperature by four degrees. Decorating: The same decorations, in the same spots, since 1997. Positions are measured from the skirting board. A new bauble was introduced in 2019. Nobody saw it leave. Nobody asks. Christmas Day: Lunch has been planned since August. Eating begins at 1pm and continues, uninterrupted, until 9pm, like a box set made of gravy. The after-dinner nap is not a nap; it is a seasonal hibernation. Do not move his armchair. The armchair has a dent. The dent is his. Earth Signs Virgo the Shy Sheep (Virgo) — The Christmas on a Spreadsheet Gifts: Bought in July. Tracked on a colour-coded spreadsheet with tabs. Deeply practical: a label maker, a properly good tin opener, a drawer organiser for your drawer organiser. Every gift has a gift receipt, and the gift receipt has a gift receipt. Wrapping is done with hospital corners and Sellotape cut to the exact millimetre. Expects to receive: “Nothing, honestly.” She means it. But, very privately, she would love it if someone noticed the wrapping. Decorating: Baubles spaced at equal intervals, checked with a ruler. If one bulb goes out, the whole evening is lost. Tinsel is chaos. Tinsel is banned. Fallen pine needles are hoovered on the hour. Christmas Day: Dinner runs on a Gantt chart. The roast potatoes are timed to the second. She quietly refolds everyone’s napkins while they’re in the loo. At 11pm she is discovered alone in the kitchen, sorting the chocolate tin by colour, at peace for the first time all year.   Earth Signs Cap the Goat (Capricorn) — The Christmas With a Business Plan Gifts: Value for