The mother of Dame Deborah James said she would rather “hide” than do Christmas this year but has decided to celebrate her daughter.
Dame Deborah, known by her social media handle Bowelbabe, captured the hearts of the nation in the weeks before she died of Stage 4 bowel cancer on June 28.
In the mother-of-two’s final months, the Sun columnist raised almost £7 million for cancer research.
Her mother Heather James, whose Instagram handle is Bowelgran, spoke on ITV’s Lorraine on Wednesday about how she feels during her first Christmas without Dame Deb.
She said: “It’s very hard. I think it’s hard for anybody who has lost anybody, but Deborah loved Christmas - she was so into it.
“The build-up to it, the enthusiasm, the sparkles and have I got that energy? I try, for her. Part of me would like to not do it, but that’s not what she wanted.”
Heather also said they had tried to replicate Dame Deborah’s Christmas traditions, adding: “We tried to make table decorations last week and I did it with my other daughter and my future daughter-in-law.
“We cracked open the champagne, I drank most of it."
She also said: “I knew Deborah would say, ‘Mum, that’s great that you’re doing this’. But it’s putting the effort into (this) … part of me would like to just hide and not do it.
“That’s not what we’re going to do, we’re going to celebrate Deborah," she said.
She is a champion of Dame Deborah’s No Butts campaign, which aims to raise awareness of bowel cancer and has the symptoms of the disease written on Serious Tissues’ toilet paper.
The mother of Dame Deborah also said her daughter had a “great legacy” which includes record numbers, released in August, of people having bowel cancer checks.
Between the months of May and July 2022, 170,500 people referred for checks for suspected lower gastro-intestinal cancers.
It is up over 30,000 compared with the same period in 2021, and nearly 80,000 higher than the same period two years ago.
Dame Deborah was diagnosed in 2016 and kept her one million Instagram followers up to date with her treatments.
Her candid posts about her progress and diagnosis, including videos of her dancing her way through treatment, won praise from the public and media alike.
Shortly before her death she was made a dame, with the then-prime minister Boris Johnson saying: “If ever an honour was richly deserved, this is it.”
The Sun launched the No Time 2 Lose campaign in April 2018 - to call on the Government to lower the screening age to 50, which could save 4,500 lives annually.
In the summer of 2018, health secretary Matt Hancock announced screening in England would be lowered to 50 - marking a victory for The Sun and campaigners.
The programme expanded to include 56 year olds in 2021.