celebrate

VIC Hope has shared a rare snap of her baby boy Micah as she and husband Calvin Harris shared their first Christmas as a family of three.

The BBC Radio 1 presenter, 36, gave birth to the couple’s first child in July, returning to work for an awards ceremony in October.

Now she has given her Instagram followers a sneak peek into her festive period with the iconic DJ and their firstborn.

Vick kicked off her image carousel with a snap showing her donning a shimmering gold dress as she sat at a table awaiting a Christmas feast.

She pulled her locks back into a stylish up-do and kept her make-up natural, accessorising with huge gold earrings.

She followed with a tender snap of Micah on her tummy before images showed Summer hitmaker Calvin, 41, picking up their Christmas tree and their tot wearing a ‘my first Christmas’ baby grow.

DADDY COOL

Calvin Harris is the doting dad as he poses with baby son Micah in a papoose

GOT HOPE

Vick Hope looks incredible as she returns to work after she welcomed first child

Snapshots of their family celebrations followed as Calvin was seen sat by the baby in his high chair.

In her caption, Vic wrote: “Twas the season.”

MUM JOURNEY

Back in October, Vick admitted that she’d been covered in “bright yellow s**t” since giving birth.

And addressing a graphic snap of her placenta, posted by hubby Calvin, she joked: “‘It was posted by my husband but placentas are amazing.

“I am keen to celebrate motherhood after what my vagina has done – it’s f***ing majestic. 

“And now you’ve all seen my placenta too!”

The placenta pic was included in a series of snaps he posted, as he announced the birth of his son on Instagram back in August.

The post, which included images of Vick in a birthing pool, had snaps of her placenta with capsules, suggesting they had it encapsulated – an increasingly popular trend.

He wrote in the caption: “20th of July our boy arrived. Micah is here!

“My wife is a superhero and I am in complete awe of her primal wisdom! Just so grateful.

“We love you so much Micah.”

Vick previously posted a series of summer highlights on Instagram and looked radiant as she cradled the couple’s son at the couple’s sprawling Spanish residence.

Calvin bought the stunning 138-acre farm, known as Terra Masia, back in 2022, and the couple spent much of the summer there, with Vick even giving birth in the Ibiza property.

R.J. Prewitt has been a Ducks fan since the first puck dropped in Anaheim, so he’s known good times and bad.

He was there when the team won the Stanley Cup in 2007, for example, and when it took another final to a seventh game four seasons earlier. But he was also there through each of the last seven seasons, when the Ducks never placed higher than sixth in the Pacific Division and finished a combined 74 games under .500.

“It’s my team,” said Prewitt, wearing a white-and-orange Ducks’ sweater as he waited to enter the Crypto.com Arena for Saturday night’s game with the Kings. “I’m going to have faith no matter what.”

That faith is getting another stern test this month. Because after entering December atop the division standings for the first time in more than a decade, the Ducks have lost six of their last eight, with the most ignominious loss coming Saturday in a 6-1 thrashing by their neighborhood rivals and winger Alex Laferriere, who got his first career hat trick.

Ducks left wing Alex Killorn skates with the puck during a loss to Kings Saturday at Crypto.com Arena.

(Katie Chin / Associated Press)

For the Kings, the season-high six goals comes at the end of a slide that had seen them lose six of their last seven, averaging less than two goals a game over that stretch.

Laferriere scored more than that by himself Saturday.

The Kings’ first two goals, from Drew Doughty and Trevor Moore, came in the first four minutes. Laferriere got his first midway through the first period and when Quinton Byfield scored on a power play just before the intermission, the Kings took a 4-0 lead into the locker room at the break.

For the Ducks, who have been plagued by slow starts — 11 of their 21 wins came in games in which they trailed; only the Philadelphia Flyers have more — that deficit was too much to overcome.

“That’s unacceptable,” coach Joel Quenneville said. “You’re not going to make the playoffs being at that level. So we’ve got to make sure that we recapture that feeling of what it takes to be consistent.”

Ducks coach Joel Quenneville yells instructions to his players during a game against the Chicago Blackhawks on Oct. 19.

(Paul Beaty / Associated Press)

Yet despite Saturday’s loss, the Ducks and their fans still have a lot of positives to celebrate — especially given the team’s recent history.

The Ducks’ 21 wins are still most in the division; they didn’t get their 21st win until Jan. 28th last season. And their 130 goals through 38 games — an average of nearly 3 ½ a night — rank fourth in the NHL. They were in the bottom three in scoring in each of the last three seasons.

But what had been the most remarkable turnaround in the league through the first three months has suddenly hit a rough patch, challenging the narrative that new coach Quenneville had finally taken the team from pretenders to contenders.

“Well, we’ve got to prove it,” Quenneville said after Saturday’s humiliation, the Ducks’ most lopsided loss of the season. “We can talk about [how] we want to be a harder-working team this season. But the game tonight didn’t indicate that at all.

“The tenaciousness and the relentless has to go be part of our identity. But we can’t talk about it. We’ve got to prove that.”

Quenneville has been here before. In 2008, he took over a young Chicago Blackhawks team that hadn’t been to the playoffs in five seasons and guided it to the conference finals. A year later, it won the Stanley Cup.

Then in 2019, he took over a young Florida Panthers’ team and led it to the franchise’s first playoff appearance in three seasons.

Both teams had to learn to win, had to believe they could win, before they actually did so. Now Quenneville’s young Ducklings are having their beliefs tested by their worst eight-game stretch of the season.

“I’ve never been on a winning-record team in the NHL. And I’m not the only guy,” said 22-year-old center Mason McTavish, one of six Ducks younger than 23. “It’s a learning curve for sure.

“But at the same time we know how good we are. And this last six, eight games, it’s not been up to our standard. We’ve taken a huge step this year. But that’s not our end goal. We want to make the playoffs. We want to win the Stanley Cup.”

The Ducks will have to become a lot more consistent to have a chance to make that happen. Because while they’re one of the league’s top scoring teams, only the St. Louis Blues have allowed more goals than the Ducks, who have a minus-2 goal differential. And they’ve been outscored 34-19 in their last eight games.

The slump, then, is looming as a test of character and resolve. At a similar point in Quenneville’s first season in Chicago, the Blackhawks lost five times in an eight-game stretch. But they rebounded by winning nine of their next 12 and never looked back.

McTavish, who had his team’s only goal Saturday, said the Ducks have to do the same thing if they hope to show the playoffs are now a realistic goal for a franchise that hasn’t had a winning record in seven seasons.

Ducks goaltender Lukas Dostal is congratulated by Nikita Nesterenko and Mason McTavish after blocking a shot by Panthers center Evan Rodrigues to win during a shootout on Oct. 28 in Sunrise, Fla.

(Lynne Sladky / Associated Press)

“We have to come out the next game and really prove to ourselves that we can play with the top teams in the league,” he said. “And beat them.”

The Ducks long-suffering supporters are also ready for the pain of the last seven seasons to ease.

“Yes, yes, yes. I believe,” said Daniel Núñez of Bakersfield who, like Prewitt, has been a fan from the first season. “We have a good shot, I think, to win the Pacific Division. We have a really good team.”

“Whatever they’re doing,” Prewitt agreed “I’m there with them.”