Australia's queen of fast, fresh and simple food shares her plans for a relaxed celebration, along with a few of her favourite images from the December issue of Donna Hay Magazine. 

My Christmas style is pretty relaxed and casual – it's more about textures than colour. I'm playing around with natural rustic tones and lots of texture this year. Think smooth brown paper, thick woven hessian and creamy twine, along with some stitched grosgrain ribbon for a little luxury.



This year I will be buying large cotton beach towels as gifts because my friends all want to keep a towel at my house for impromptu swims!



My failsafe Christmas styling tip is the classic brown paper packages tied up with string – brown paper on everything! It makes a great table runner, use it to line serving bowls and of course, it's perfect for wrapping all your presents.



On Christmas day I keep my sanity with a few quick cooling dips in the ocean.



All I want for Christmas is some quiet time, lazing on a quiet beach with an ice-cold lychee martini in hand, because it's been a super busy year.



This Christmas I will be serving everything from my new Christmas special, a donna hay christmas, screening on Foxtel's The LifeStyle Channel on Sunday, December 8 at 8.30pm. Filming has given me the perfect practice so Christmas day should be a breeze!

My biggest Christmas faux pas was when I tried to glaze a ham balancing half in and half out of the oven when it slipped. It ruined my Collette Christmas frock and burned my arms with hot glaze.



All images courtesy of Donna Hay.

Look out for the December issue of Donna Hay Magazine in stores, subscribe to the iPad version or download it via Zinio.  A subscription makes a great Christmas gift...