Why you should go skiing for Christmas instead of New Year (spoiler: it’s all about the money)

What are you doing for Christmas? If the very mention of the C-word strikes like an icicle through the heart, don’t worry – you are not alone.

As a prefix, Christmas cheapens everything that follows: movie; party; jumper; number one... it's like a toddler running through the furniture department of John Lewis with a set of felt tips. Holiday is the only thing it doesn’t ruin, once you get over the hurdle of what you are actually going to do for all that time away, together.

Skiing is the perfect solution.

That’s how I sold it to my wife anyway. Imagine: no cooking; no in laws; no your house/our house/whose house/doghouse. No Queen’s speech, BBC repeats. No listless lull come Boxing Day, nor arguments over who’s coming out for a walk. And no presents, either.

That might have been the straw that broke the little donkey’s back. We still have a 10-year old who expects a visit from Santa, I was told. Sternly.  

So, to paraphrase Wham!, Last Christmas, I gave her a lift ticket. The very next day, we hit the slopes in Sauze d’Oulx, with the activity specialist, Neilson. We had enjoyed one of their sporty beach holidays in Sardinia last summer; surely the same formula would work for Christmas just a bit further north in Italy?

I was slightly worried about the resort: “Suzy” was a party girl in the Eighties and Nineties, better suited to beery après ski than a magical family winterlude. But on the plus side, Turin is only a 90-minute flight and the coach transfer to the slopes about the same. Short of hijacking Santa's sleigh, the journey couldn't be easier.

Snow might have been an issue: Sauze is on the sunny, south-facing side of the Alps and has suffered a couple of patchy starts to the season in recent years. This was the hinge on which my festive gambit swung. Get it wrong and the children may never trust me again. More importantly, we risked ridicule FaceTiming the very family we snubbed on Christmas Day.

I needn’t have worried: our hotel, the Edelweiss, was in the quiet hamlet of Jouvenceaux; whose beautiful medieval streets don’t even house a supermarket, let alone a raucous après scene. There is, however, a ski lift within 100m from the hotel.  

Bigger and busier Sauze d’Oulx is next door; part of the same Milky Way ski area which also includes Pragelato, Sestriere, Cesana and Sansicario. All still proudly bear the rings of the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics.

The lift ticket even includes a day in France if you fancy an international adventure. You can ski over the border to Montgenèvre on the full six-day pass, which is good value at €196 (£171). Or it is providing all the lifts are open, which they mostly were for Christmas week. The Italian season doesn’t really get going until Boxing Day, and even then some of the older lifts weren’t running, but for the most part the Milky Way was open, and living up to its stellar billing.

It was a mystery, then, as to why the slopes were so empty. Even when the locals came out, there were scarcely any crowds; few lift queues and the ski school at barely more than five to a class.

This rare luxury of space delivered bundles of confidence to the kids. Miles and Ava are 10, having started at five, and declared their lessons “the best ever”.

Italian instructors have always been good at getting everyone down the mountain with a smile on their face as opposed to the strictly correct angle of knee flex or technically precise outer ski pressure. Whatever it was, they couldn’t wait to get going of a morning. As a result, this was the first ski holiday I have taken with kids that actually felt like a holiday.

Experience may have something to do with it, but the weather was also kind. All week long I applied my scientific twin lens and tangerine tests to the proceedings: the former records how often and for what duration you have to switch to the low-light lens on your ski goggles; the latter whether you can peel a tangerine on a chairlift without getting frostbite. This used to be known as the cigarette roll up when people still did that sort of thing. The results were the stuff of skiers’ dreams.

It is a risk, of course, but during Christmas week, the southern facing Alps stand a good chance of delivering nature’s most delicious paradox: the sun on your face and snow beneath your skis. In my book that is a solid cause for celebration.

Plus, a little Italian flair has power over even a Scrooge like me. With Jouvenceaux’s cobbled streets lit up like a fairy tale, it is impossible not to feel festive when you visit in December.  

Christmas Eve is the main focus of the Italian holidays, so book a meal at Étoile des neiges in the village centre if you want to join in the fun. Nominally a pizzeria, it also serves mountains of pasta and good meat dishes at reasonable prices.

And onto expense. Value has always been one of Italy’s key selling points and prices on the mountain were far less scary than in France. A round of drinks for the family at the charming Ciao Pais, one of the smartest places on the mountain: €16 (£14). A very good sausage polenta at Urso Bianco, near the main lift station: €10.

I could go on. Not least on prices - Neilson’s Christmas packages are almost £1,500 cheaper for a family of four compared with New Year (£3,222 for December 23 departures vs. £4,628 for December 30). It is also cheaper than February half term, and typically a few degrees warmer – certainly a benefit with kids.

Also, a proper Christmas dinner on the 25th gives everyone something to look forward to: a celebratory high that you don’t get with a regular ski holiday.  There are crackers and turkey, Brussels sprouts and pigs in blankets and, yes, novelty jumpers galore. I would happily wear one of these every year if it meant getting a week in the mountains at the same time.

Spend Christmas by the slopes and you will likely end up offending someone by turning down their Boxing Day turkey curry buffet (but you wanted to do that anyway). And if our Christmas Day was anything to go by, you will have to fight the urge to gloat on Facebook, or risk being unfriended or muted or whatever punishments are dished out on social media to the terminally smug.

But all will be worth it as you sweep the kids up from their ski lesson and ascend the mountain under a crystalline sky, or simply retreat to the bar for yet another bowl of polenta before doing it all again the next day. That is the recipe for a very happy Christmas, and not a minute spent arguing over the washing up.

Need to know

Christmas week at Neilson’s chalet hotel Edelweiss in Jouvenceaux is from £3,222 for a family of four, including flights, transfers and half board with afternoon tea and wine included at dinner.