How many have you done?

kittyylester
I use shortcuts pastry on the bottom and sometimes puff on top.
I've also used ready made filo pastry and made rolls like a curved croissant. ( a generous teaspoon of rum infused mincemeat in the middle of the wide end and after baking, sprinkle with sieves icing sugar. I don't like mincemeat but gift them to friends in a box lined with red or green serviettes. They look pretty.

* er..shortcrust, not shortcuts.

I think I have done about 30 + dinners , and now because I'm disabled my lovely hubby does them x

Gluten free Shortcrust pastry.
12oz plain gf flour.
3oz margarine
3oz of lard or. White vegetable fat
1. Teaspoon Xanthum gum
1 egg
Water.
Personally I used 6oz plain and 6oz Self Raisins flour.
Got the recipe from a face book page
Nanny and me are gluten free.
It’s an excellent page.
The pastry works really well made lemon Meringue Pie to try it and since made my mince pies.

Well I’ve just crossed the line...was in Marks and Sparks. Saw Free range turkey breast, a duck stuffed breast, gravy and stuffing.. Went for it,!! Oh and bread sauce. This will be first time I don’t cook all from scratch. All in freezer. If it’s awful, someone can take over next time!

Me and the husband are alone for Christmas - which is the way we like it. We do have family but they are scattered across England. Even if we weren't, we all agree to have Christmas day alone and do visiting either Christmas Eve or Boxing Day. The only thing I scratch-cook is the chicken (turkey is way too expensive for just two of us) - the rest is pre-prepared goose fat roast potatoes and swede/carrot mash from Sainsburys. We have a happy and stress-free Christmas on our own - can't understand why people subject themselves to large family gatherings on Christmas Day, and then bitch about the stress!

My total is 45 and I've been invited out this year - it just won't seem right, not like Christmas at all. I guess a lot of you will say I should be grateful.

I have cooked about 30 Christmas day dinners.

Of late we have been dining out with my children and step children, plus grandchildren.

Part of me thinks I should be slaving over a hot stove (with my paper hat on, sherry or G&T in hand and Christmas music playing as I stir the gravy) but we did it for all the family a few years ago and we were completely done in afterwards and didn't really enjoy ourselves because we were seeing to others, ensuring their day was happy and bright, their tummies filled and glasses constantly topped up. We collapsed in a heap when they all went home on Boxing Day.

This year we are dining out again, but I must admit, paying £70 a head irks me, but all were willing to do it so we could be together on the day. Not sure that we can justify paying £35 for meals for the three GC, but, that's what it costs...

I quite like being cook, provider and host etc. I just wish I had the energy I had when I was younger. I am thinking that we cannot justify the expense of eating out on Christmas day. I may don my pinny and paper hat again next year.

I ought to add that my (ex) in laws often entertained us on Christmas day, and what a treat it was. Father in law was (in his youth) an army chef and he'd delight in laying on fabulous Christmas dinners, starting with whole cooked lobsters, a goose with all the trimmings and his own Christmas puddings and brandy butter. They were lavish affairs. He died a while ago, but I remember him and his enthusiasm, and those wonderful meals, with much affection. I was so lucky as a wife and mother to have him and MIL take the strain on Christmas day.

M0nica - fifty! Wow! There should be a medal there somewhere.

I met the OH at the age of twenty and we moved in together very quickly spending Christmases with alternate parents for a few years. So I reckon I have cooked about 35 Christmas dinners for immediate family only. For a decade or so I catered for ten people or so as the DS and her family and my DM used to come for a two night stopover on Boxing Day.

This year the DD is with us with her DF and they are marrying in June so who knows what the future will bring. DGC I am hoping.

Lilyflower, it took me a while to work out "DF" lol. I was thinking of all the alternative relationship styles I knew and it didn't fit, only then I remembered "fiance"

I buy everything I can ready-made or frozen, even gravy comes from a pouch. I'm not spending hours in the kitchen doing anything I don't need to from scratch. Kids and their families want to spend their xmas here every year so it can't be bad. Apparently I make the best rosaries ever (well thanks to Auntie B of course). Come on GNetters throw off those pinnies and enjoy the day.

I've done Christmas every year since my mother died 40 years ago. It was easier when I had a husband to share the load. This year today is the first day I've started doing anything for it as I moved house yesterday. Today I've booked an online food shop and asked the family what presents they would like.

This is my 33rd year of hosting the dinner, but will be the 59th Christmas dinner I've cooked from scratch!
My in-laws almost always went on holiday at Christmas, but insisted on having a dinner with us upon their return. No matter what day it was, it had to be a full Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, even though FiL won't eat anything he considers 'different'! The dinner I made for them has always been 'bog standard', turkey, mashed carrot and swede, sprouts done to death, roasties, sage and onion stuffing and gravy, followed by Xmas pud and custard......SO boring!
Now that FiL is on his own, he comes to us on Christmas day, when we have the boring, basic dinner and I tolerate his racist, sexist views (I spend a lot of time hiding in the kitchen, usually with a large Irish Whiskey) until he asks to be taken home. Fortunately he likes to visit a friend for the evening, so usually leaves at about 4-30! Dinner has to be served at 12-00 noon, as that's what he 'demands' and it's honestly not worth the hassle to argue!
Our 'proper' Christmas dinner is usually served on New Years day, when I push the boat out and make 'my' dinner!

Done everything for Christmas since I was married in 1962, love baking etc. and have Christmas cakes and puddings as gifts for friends and they look forward to them every year.