ond star Pierce Brosnan will never forget Christmas 1982. "We had just taken on a new cook and, feeling chuffed, we invited 25 important guests for the festive lunch," he recalls. "After a while, I popped into the kitchen and found her, to my horror, Pierce Brosnanparalytic drunk on the floor with the uncooked bird in her arms. Can you imagine the chaos? All those expectant, hungry people and nothing prepared? I still wince when I think of it. We had to start the meal from scratch - some of the guests, who fortunately thought it was funny, joined in - and we all had Christmas supper instead."
  Eddie Murphy says the worst Christmas he's ever experienced happened in 1992. He spent most of it "on Eddie Murphyhis knees praying" as his baby son battled for life. He kept a four-day vigil at son Myles's hospital bedside. The lad - who was just six weeks old at the time, and is now eight - was fighting a deadly lung infection, made worse by an asthma condition.   "Everything seemed meaningless with Myles in that state' he says. "Watching him struggle gave me an immediate reality check on what's important in life."
  The Christmas that Dawson's Creek star Katie Holmes won't forget in a hurry was last year's. Having celebrated her 22nd birthday on December 17 with family and friends, she suddenly became something of a recluse on Christmas Day and for the next few days. "Some of my pals wondered if I was ill or something," says the gorgeous Holmes, "but the truth is, I was embarrassed to go out!" The reason? On Christmas Day, her movie The Gift - in which she starred alongside Keanu Reeves and Cate Blanchett - had its American premiere. In it she had a sexy nude scene - her first ever - and she felt too self-conscious to allow people to look her over on the street. "I just kept to myself all over the Christmas period," she says. "You could say it was a gin I could have done without. I smile about it now, but it was uncomfortable at the time."
  David Hyde Pierce's most embarrassing Christmas was, he says, when he was 15 and attending Saratoga Springs High School. "I was a high-spirited youngster, and that Christmas I was in a particularly good mood." Which is probably why he ended up draped across a piano, singing Christmas carols at the top of his voice while classmates pushed it full speed down a corridor. The piano got broken, and Pierce was hauled before the head.
  "I still shudder at the thought," says the actor who plays Frasier's brother Niles Crane on television.
  Last Christmas, in New York after returning from a trip to Hawaii with friends, Britney Spears decided she'd treat herself to a last-minute "present" - a tattoo. Somehow, she persuaded Felicia Culotta, her travelling companion and chaperone for the past three years, to find a tattoo artist who was open on Christmas Day. Felicia succeeded, and that morning the pair visited a tattoo parlor in New York's garment district. The artist meticulously inked a small, black-winged fairy at the base of her spine. Says Felicia: "It made Britney feel like a happy little rebel." But later in the day, when Britney modelled the skin fairy for her mom, Lynne, she bitterly regretted her surprise Christmas 'present.' "Her mom was distraught and it wasn't the happiest Christmas Britney has ever had!" says Felicia.
  Antonio Banderas once had high hopes of becoming a soccer player. "I was very keen on the game and played for my Malaga suburb," he says. "I was toying with the idea of becoming a professional when, aged 14, just before Christmas, I broke my left foot." It was Banderas' saddest Christmas as he agonized over what he was going to do now that his dreams of earning a fortune on the soccer pitch had been crushed. "I thought it was the end of my world. Then, soon after, I saw Hair on stage and I suddenly knew that I was going to be an actor!"
  Sandra Bullock's worst Christmas was when she was 10 years old and her father John was crushed by a bulldozer near their Virginia mountains home. "It was 24 hours before he was found and he stayed alive on that mountain top by doing vocal exercises - he's a voice teacher," she says. "He was in hospital for a year and it was the first Christmas the family had spent without him. They wanted to amputate his legs, but my mother wouldn't hear of it. After consulting at least half a dozen doctors, she finally found one who agreed to operate to save my father's legs. Now he's got scars and can't go jogging, but who cares! At least he's with us every Christmas time."

- compiled by Louise West