Christmas Dinner...reflections on and thought for the future

What is inevitable about stress at Christmas? And what have adverts and supermarkets got to do with it?

I am heading into my 50th family Christmas and over fifty years it is honed to a fine art. It has been tweeked a bit here and there over the years to adjust to changing circumstances, guests and, now allergies, but essentially it is the same. How can it be different?

The whole meal is completely prepared, complete with serving dishes out and jar of cranbury sauce standing in its bowl with spoon, waiting to be opened, on the afternoon of Christmas Eve to the sound of the King's College carols,

On Christmas day I put the turkey in the oven sometime between 8.00-9.00am, then apart from breakfast and present opening cocktails I do not go near the kitchen until mid day when I add the potatoes, parsnips and stuffing to the oven. At 12.30 the turkey comes out to rest while I cook veg and make gravy and lunch is ready between 1.00-1.30pm.

What is stressful about that - and afterwards everything goes in the dishwasher.

I don’t often do a roast dinner but enjoy prepping it once month with everything cooked from scratch. Anja is right in that Christmas is only a glorified chicken dinner so why do we stress so much over it?

I find I worry less when I write a timetable for buying on one day, prepping on Christmas Eve and then cooking in order on the day so that everything is served hot.

I wholeheartedly agree!
As a very keen cookI love to make lots of canapés for the big day. Some are prepared already and frozen! I have also made a chicken liver pate and will make and freeze mince pies next week.
My gripe though is with the gluttony and waste, no food is purchased in our home until all the turkey, ham, cheese etc have gone, not a scrap is wasted.
I will make stocks,soups, quiches anything to make sure nothing is wasted.

I'm with kittylester about the gravy, no Bisto in this house. I love sprouts but just cooked plainly with no fancying up. Delicious in bubble and squeak on Boxing Day.

@Anja, you make a fair point however I love to cook and most things are made from scratch because then they are exactly the way I like them. I just don't much like pre prepared food and I'm lucky to have a very appreciative family. The one thing I've learned over the years is to lay off the wine until the meal is on the table. Anything beyond a lovely glass of bubbly and all my timings go to pot!

My daughter cooks our Christmas dinner and her top tip - cook the roast potatoes on Christmas Eve then put them in the oven for 20 mins on Christmas Day to reheat - delicious. You can also freeze them and reheat from frozen - still delicious!

Over the years I’ve cooked Christmas diner for the family, except the years when we all went to wonderful Aunts huge house. Wonderful Aunt could also cook wonderful food.
Now, the arrangements are different, DH and I spend Christmas morning with DCs, DILs and DGCs then have Christmas lunch on our own, bliss, thank you Waitrose and M&S.
Now, Boxing Day! Everyone comes to us!

Don’t have to worry about it - lovely daughter cooks it. I am chief vegetable preparer ! You did make me laugh though Anja

I agree, I did see the Tesco ad last night, I think it was Tesco, I wasn’t taking a whole lot of notice, but at the end there was a family sat down to a meal which would have fed the five thousand!

I haven’t cooked a Sunday roast for forty years or more, and I don’t make an exception for Christmas (but sometimes my husband does)

Somehow that posted before I had finished. These days I live in a country where Christmas happens in summer and my daughter "does" Christmas. It is lovely, but the turkey and ham are cold and mostly served with a delicious selection of salads. No Christmas pudding, although I have my own personal recipe, but pavlova and trifle. Autre temps, autre mers. By the way, I still prefer goose at Christmas.

I am a cook and I contributed to family Christmases with homemade Christmas puddings, which were very rich and yummy for many years, as well as a putting up the decorations in my aunt's house. As she became older I took over the Christmas celebrations. I always cooked turkey, goose and ham – we are a big family (and I dislike turkey) – and I still made my own Christmas puddings.

I did that mixing sausage meat with Paxo for the stuffing one year. It was SO boring. Nothing like as delicious as the stuffing DD makes from scratch.

Like your OP Anja

Someone suggested on another thread that Christmas day would be so much better if we had a lovely breakfast/brunch of smoked salmon and Bucks Fizz late morning, sherry/wine/ drinks during the day as we watched old films, family stuff/the Queen's speech, and had pre-cooked cold meats, pickles and nibbles for tea later on, followed by the usual chocolate treats or mince pies etc.

Cut out the turkey roast in the middle of the day and relax. I could do that quite happily.

Just off to bed and the start of this thread has made me laugh Anja lol (I don't laugh much these days so thankyou lol)

It's easier for me, our Christmas is in summer - salads, fruits, cheese, seafood buffet, foods to dip and pick at.

No problems

I'll get into trouble if anyone from Pedants Corner sees that

But why are you all so stressed that it is only a roast dinner?

Couldn't agree more. It's just a roast dinner, maybe with one or two extras (gammon and pigs in blankets in our case), but hey, it's not rocket science.
And then there's the crazy, crazy food shopping experience. Stockpiling for Brexit has absolutely nothing on the Christmas trolley dash. HELP, the shops are going to be shut for 12 hours - we'll have to get two months' worth of rations in

Your right it’s a roast...but for 17. I look after and worry about that turkey as if it’s a baby. Happy it’s only once a year.

Spot on Anja ... bloody sick of TV programmes/magazines trying to get people stressed!!!ITS A ROAST DINNER!!!!

The only thing in that list that I would "take issue* with is the sprouts.
I don't like them but my D did exactly what you described with the shredding ,chopping tinned chestnuts and frying with, in our case, streaky bacon, they were delicious.

Absolutely Anja. The roasted I did this year were from Tesco, just bung them in the tin for the time stated on the packet. Stuffing was out of a posh packet. I don't ever fuss with the Christmas dinner, and I've had compliments! ??

Anja - quite agree apart from the fact we don't have Sunday dinner more than half a dozens times a year (if that) but I do remember cooking it and it's not much different just on a larger scale. Oh and pigs in blankets - have to have those !

I've always just done a normal roast dinner.
No extras, just the usual. Yum!

My bloomin phone - not decided but deglazed!!

I’m hoping t keep things lighter kitty, can but try ?