For a couple who love entertaining, Ollie and Gareth Locke-Locke can hardly wait for Christmas to come around. Theirs was the first house draped in festive décor in the street where they live in West London, and self-confessed shopaholic Gareth has been shopping for gifts for weeks.
But while December 25 is always special to the couple, this year's celebrations are set to be even more spectacular. For 2023's Yuletide is the first one they will be marking as parents, having welcomed twins Apollo and Cosima in July.
And, as they invite HELLO! into their lavishly decorated home for this exclusive shoot and interview, the former Made in Chelsea stars explain why celebrating together this festive season will be both poignant and memorable.
Apollo and Cosima's first Christmas
"This year, having the twins has made us excited about Christmas again," Gareth, 35, says. "We're trying to make it as quaint and as fun as possible and we get to look forward to things like Santa."
"I think the magic arrives when you have babies," Ollie adds. "It is an overriding feeling that you love your children so much. They are just part of our soul now."
As they talk to HELLO! the couple show off their two trees, one of which is decorated with hand-made baubles featuring the twins' footprints.
The family's 'chaotic' Christmas plans
Perhaps unsurprisingly, they are planning to pull out all the stops this year, with both their immediate family coming to stay from December 24.
"Normally we have to travel to see our relatives at Christmas. But because we've got the twins, everyone's coming to us," Gareth explains. "On Christmas Day we are cooking at ours; we've got turkey, beef, lamb and ham and goodness knows what else. There will be six children under six and eight adults. It's going to be chaos!"
Bringing babies into their lives have only enhanced their relationship and they are forever thankful that their long three-year fertility journey ended with the arrival of their adored Apollo and Cosima.
"Every day I think about how lucky we are," Ollie says. "I think it's just an extraordinary situation: all the pain, all the tears, but when you hold them it becomes a different thing - your whole world becomes different."
After spending the festive season at home, they will be jetting off on their first family holiday with the babies, to Barbados. Before then they hope to spend some time with Bex Ward, the surrogate who carried their twins to term and who remains a very close friend of the family.
Close bond with their surrogate
"Bex is coming down with her children and we're going to go to Winter Wonderland and do the kind of things they love. Her children are our honorary nephews. We see her a lot," Ollie says.
"She loves seeing the twins but she was saying it's really weird because she doesn't feel like she carried them. She's just so happy because I think she sees how happy we are and how we're actually - dare I say it? - doing quite well. The babies are wonderful. They're really thriving and are becoming little humans with completely different personalities."
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