My mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer shortly before three P.M. on Christmas Day of 2008. I don't know the exact time of her death because none of us thought to look at a clock for a while after she stopped breathing.

Actually my mother and Alfie came for three weeks' Christmas vacation and stayed for 21 years. I guess my mother never went back because she was lonely.

The denominational world tries to pressure its members to focus on the birth of Christ but in doing so layers of guilt are imposed and competition gets complicated as one Christmas program tries to outdo the other.

Brits and Americans have hundreds of different phrases for the same thing. Luckily it's usually a source of amusement rather than frustration. A flashlight by any other name is still a torch. My personal favourite is 'fairy lights ' which we boringly refer to as 'Christmas lights.'

Black Friday is not another bad hair day in Wall Street. It's the term used by American retailers to describe the day after the Thanksgiving Holiday seen as the semi-official start of Christmas shopping season.

The sharpest memory of our old-fashioned Christmas eve is my mother's hand making sure I was settled in bed.

There's a little vanity chair that Charlie gave me the first Christmas we knew each other. I'll not be parting with that nor our bed - the four-poster - I'll be needing that to die in.

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.

There are some people who want to throw their arms round you simply because it is Christmas there are other people who want to strangle you simply because it is Christmas.

That's the true spirit of Christmas people being helped by people other than me.

My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful but when I had to choose one or the other I usually chose the beautiful.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it human and otherwise are imaginary excepting only certain of the fairy folk whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof.

These days I'm mostly familiar with two parts of L.A.: one is movie culture and the other is Asian culture. The Westside is work and the Eastside is Chinese - which means my friends.

Another Black Label motto. That's what I think life is. It's just another bridge to cross. You ask no questions. Whatever work it is you gotta do you gotta go over it under it through it around it to do it.

The companies that make meaningful contributions while also listening to the voices of others are the ones that will genuinely engage their community who will then go to work for them.

But I'm pretty good with collaborative thinking. I work well with other people.

To me as long as we've known each other I've always thought Mick's most brilliant thing was that he could work in an area two foot square and give a very exciting performance.

You see my mother was a district nurse until she died when I was 14 and we used to move from time to time because of her work.

Actresses can get outrageously precious about the way they look. That's not what life's about. If you starve yourself to the point where your brain cells shrivel you will never do good work. And if you're overly conscious of your arms flapping in the wind how can you look the other actor in the eye to respond to them?

It sometimes makes people feel better about themselves you know to put other people down or make fun of them or maybe make mockery of their work and that doesn't make me feel good at all.

In reality serendipity accounts for one percent of the blessings we receive in life work and love. The other 99 percent is due to our efforts.

Being a mother is quite tiring. There's not much time to do anything. You just rush around and it's hard work.

Everyone has a story that makes me stronger. I know that the work I do is important and I enjoy it but it is nice to hear the feedback of what we do to inspire others.

I can deal with people who watch me on stage but I am not good in communicating with people any other way than through my work.