And, just as you can rely on your mum to wrap up some socks for your stocking, you know that Jools Holland will be on hand with a Christmas tour and his annual New Year's Eve bash on the telly.

Becoming embedded in the festive psyche is an achievement indeed, but it's not Jools' only accomplishment.

By the time he was eight, he could play the piano fluently by ear.
At 15 he met Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford, with whom he formed Squeeze and had hits with Up The Junction and Cool for Cats.

In 1987 Jools and Squeeze drummer Gilson Lavis formed The Jools Holland Big Band, which gradually evolved into the 20-piece orchestra it is today.

Over 14 years he's been performing with his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, Jools has played to a staggering four million people.

As well as his live performances, Jools has had a prolific recording career, including the multimillion-selling Jools and Friends series, which saw him in the studio with Sting, Eric Clapton, Bono, Joe Strummer and Peter Gabriel, among others.

Running parallel to Jools' music career has been his television presenting, including seminal shows The Tube, Juke Box Jury and then, a series which combined both his talents, Later...with Jools Holland.

Later is now the longest running music programme on British TV and includes the ratings-topping annual New Year's Eve episode, the Hootenanny.

In 2003 Jools' phenomenal achievements were formally recognised when he was awarded the OBE and in 2007 he published an autobiography, Barefaced Lies & Boogie-Woogie Boasts.

As this brief glance at the great pianist's CV reveals, he's a formidable player in the music industry – but chatting to him highlights that he lacks the ruthless nature that often accompanies such power.

Jools is an enthusiastic, charming and interesting interviewee. His excitement is infectious and he hasn't a bad word to say about anything or anyone.

When I ask whether he prefers presenting Later or touring with his orchestra, Jools plumps for touring 'because it's communicating directly with an audience'.

'Performing live, directly to an audience is the best thing you can possibly do,' says the 51-year-old from South East London, who adds: 'It's also great to see people close-up creating and enjoying music in the television or recording studio'.

Jools is currently in his element, approaching the Portsmouth finale of his festive tour and looking forward to the Hootenanny the following week.

As we speak he is en route from Kent to Plymouth and shatters my illusion that there are 20 musicians Boogie-woogieing their way around Britain in one big tour bus.

'We have various nice vehicles because people live in different parts of the country,' reveals Jools.

'But when we tour Singapore and Japan next year it will probably be easier to travel round in a coach together,' he continues

'We wouldn't do that here, though, because in Great Britain their are various historic mounds and I'd forever be stopping and making people get out to look at them.

'When I see a brown sign, I'm off, I'm unstoppable. What's great about Britain is that there's so much stuff, so much history. You name it, we've got it all. It's one of the best places to tour.

'When we come to Portsmouth, I always have a walk along the seafront and sometimes I scamper over to the Victory.'

But it's not just the visitor attractions that draw Jools to Portsmouth, he also praises its people.

'We love playing in Portsmouth because the people are really lovely,' he says, genuinely.

For this reason he's picked the city for the closing date of his tour, which he says seems to have gone very quickly since it began on October 29 in Southend.

'It seems to be that time is passing quicker and not only that, but there seems to be less of it,' Jools hypothesizes jokingly.

'I'd like to get together a team of magicians and top scientists before the next tour to change the quantum of time and give us more because the more you play, the more you can figure it out and the better it sounds.'

Jools' orchestra has been growing, organically, for more than a decade and is now made up of all age groups, sexes and people from all over the world.

'We've got people from Jamaica and Ireland, people in their 70s and in their 20s. It's a real cross section, but we're all united once we get on that stage,' he beams.

As well as his 20-piece orchestra, Jools always brings guest singers on his tours. This year it's Ruby Turner and Louise Marshall, who came to Portsmouth with him last year, and singer and guitarist Dave Edmunds.

So how does Jools choose his singers? 'I have to think about what suits my music,' he explains. 'Ruby and Louise sing my music brilliantly and Dave's rock 'n' roll guitar turns it into a completely different thing, more muscular and danceable.

'It's also about what they can create out of our music. If it fills me with joy, then that can be communicated to our audience.

'If you can make people feel how you do, without having to use blunt instruments like words, then the goal is achieved. Our goal is for the orchestra and the audience to feel uplifted,' Jools explains passionately.

With his tours, albums, and Later, Jools has worked with more artists than most of us have on our iPods. So you would imagine that performing alongside megastars is as much an event for him as sending an e-mail is to an office worker.

But Jools says that he is frequently star-struck, even with people he's worked with before.

'We were doing something with Eric Clapton the other day and you stop and think "wow, I'm here with Eric Clapton".

'And when we had Gladys Knight on the show recently I was thinking "I can't believe I'm here in the same place as Gladys Knight. I've been buying her records forever."

'But once you start to play, it's all forgotten about,' he says.
It's no wonder Jools is looking forward to his Hootenanny, which will be broadcast on BBC2 on New Year's Eve. This annual event sees some of the biggest names gathered for a New Year's Eve party edition of his Later show and puts Jools in the privileged position of seeing in the new year with an audience of millions.

'I love it!' he exclaims. 'Sometimes I have to sit back and pinch myself. Being me is a great job.'

Jools successfully rode out the storm of last year's controversy about Hootenanny not being broadcast live. He explains, 'It's all performed live, but it's filmed just before, because to get all the people there at the same time on New Year's Eve would be impossible.

'For everyone there it's New Year's Eve, we just live it a few days before.

'When I was a young the family would sit round the piano at Christmas and join in singing. There's an element of that in the Hootenanny.
'The other great thing about it is that people really relax and play just for the pleasure of it.

'And of course they are inadvertently slightly over-served. It's nice to see influential people off their nuts,' laughs the host.

If Jools' appearance in Portsmouth on Monday and his Hootenanny on TV on Thursday, December 31, aren't enough for you, then you can take a trip to the cinema to see the star and his orchestra.

They appeared in and performed on the soundtrack for Me and Orson Wells, which is in cinemas now.

'It's basically about Orson Wells and his early life when he was just starting to get going. It's also a love story,' explains Jools of the film which stars Claire Danes and Zac Efron.

Of his part in it all, he continues: 'It's set in 1937 and they wanted all the music to be authentic.

'People still hum a lot of the tunes from that time. Songs like You Made Me Love You, everyone knows. There's a poetry to them, a resonance.

'When we recorded, all the band brought old instruments and we got old mics out and recorded it like a 1930s record.'

Director Richard Linklater said that the most fun he had during the whole filmmaking process was choosing the music with Jools. So how was it for the musician?

'It was great fun to do. In one short scene, we got to dress up in 1930s clothes and I even had a false moustache,' he recalls.
Jools also appeared in the film Spiceworld back in 1997, but he says he has no aspirations in the field of acting.

'I'm doing enough stuff already and I can't act,' he admits.
In fact, Jools says he has no unfulfilled ambitions. 'I just want to carry on being and not to do a great deal more.

'That's what's changed in the world. People used to have a pub or whatever and that's what they'd do for the rest of their lives. Now people want to open more pubs and branch out into other things.

'I don't want a chain of Jools, I just want to be Jools,' says the star earnestly.
But that's not to say that there's nothing in the pipeline for Jools and his gang.

He says: 'We're going to Australia next year, so that's a pretty big thing for us and we hope to tour Britain again.
'For me it's really just about the joy of playing music and communicating with people.
'I really look forward to it and I'm really looking forward to doing it in Portsmouth.'

See Jools Holland and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra at Portsmouth Guildhall on Monday, December 21.
Only a few tickets remain, priced at £31.50, from (023) 9282 4355 or portsmouthguildhall.co.uk