IMAGINE what Christmas would be like if you suddenly won millions of pounds.

Many would probably swap the stresses of preparing Christmas dinner for eating out, buy friends and family expensive gifts, and abandon the cold English weather for a warmer foreign location.

But two of the region's National Lottery winners insist that, although they are considerably better off this Christmas, it will be more or less the same as every other year.

Anita Wynne, 46, of Darlington, won £3.6m in June, a week before another Darlington resident, Barry Moss, netted £7.5m - making the town the luckiest place in Britain.

Since then, Mrs Wynne and husband Ken, 53, have moved from their three-bedroomed council house, in the town's Cockerton area, to a six-bedroomed luxury home two miles away, in Blackwell.

They drive a sports car, enjoy regular foreign holidays and are in the process of building a second home in Crete, their favourite holiday destination.

But this Christmas, instead of buying lavish gifts and celebrating extravagantly, the couple and their 14-year-old daughter, Natalie, will stick to the traditional festivities they love.

Mrs Wynne said that before winning the Lottery and giving up her job at The Gardens nursing home, in Darlington, she would more often than not be at work on Christmas Day.

When suggested that it would be nice not to have to work this year, she said: "Well, actually, I think I'll rather miss it. I enjoyed it with the residents.

"I want to go and see them all at some point over Christmas, catch up with all the gossip and see how they all are."

The couple will stay at home tonight, as usual, wrapping presents and preparing tomorrow's veg, and Mr Wynne will cook Christmas dinner, as usual.

"We were thinking about going away for Christmas, maybe somewhere nice and warm, but it is our first Christmas in this house and we were so excited about it, so we decided to stay here," said Mrs Wynne.

"We haven't bought any more presents than usual, or anything more extravagant, we've just got things for each other that we think the other will like.

"We aren't going to go mad - we could, but we aren't. We want to keep our feet on the ground.

"Ken and I always open one present on Christmas Eve, just before we go to bed. I'm sure we'll still do that. It's been a good year, but Christmas won't be much different at all. We like it as it is."