To believe that preparing Christmas Dinner is actually not that difficult ?

[rookiemater]

I'm probably going to be flamed for this one, but I just can't quite get the levels of excitement generated about having to make Christmas dinner.

It is as hard or as easy as you want to make it. If you feel that Christmas is not special without Nigellas brine soaked turkey and Heston's ludicrous christmas pudding then fine,knock yourself out but don't then complain about how hard it is to cater on the big day. If like me you are fairly lazy then you go to M&S and buy it all ready made, bung into the oven and hey presto a few minutes effort produces a lovely meal. Perhaps the taste is not quite as good as if it was prepared from "scratch" but is certainly miles better than what you get in most restaurants.

I would imagine the same effect can be generated by visiting Tesco or Asda, but I always associate M&S with Christmas.

I actually find it much easier to do than other meals as at least you don't need to devise a menu plan. In fact I like Christmas dinner so much that as we are going to SIL's this year I have bought and froze all the ingrediants so we can have them at some other time of year.

So really is it that hard to make a turkey dinner?

I confess I don't like fiddled with veg. Crisp steamed veg is the one fresh clean note in a meal heavy in protein and carbs. So while I happily make chestnut stuffing (from chestnut I picked up myself ) and spiced sausagemeat, and bread sauce, and mincemeat, I like my veg simple.

I adore cooking Christmas Dinner. Many a year I've cooked it at home and taken it turkey and all to someone else's house. I've also been known to take over someone else's kitchen and cook as a guest on the day.

I cooked with a three week old baby. But to be fair I only cooked for 12 that year.

This year prep is already in full swing for dinner for 17 adults and 12 children

I reckon:

Easy Christmas Dinner: when you're cooking the roast with all the trimmings, but other people are popping in and out of the kitchen, someone peels the spuds and someone the sprouts, someone pours you a glass of wine, and the radio is on and people keep coming in again to chat/nibble at edges of marzipan from the cake.

Hard Christmas Dinner: when everyone else has gone off to enjoy presents, you're slaving away on your own, and when you call no-one comes. Or they come, half-heartedly do one job, and then vanish just when you thought you had some help. Occasionally someone pops their head round the door to ask how much longer it will be, and to make a pot of tea (across your worksurface) for everyone else. Empty wine-glasses accumulate by the dishwasher, but you don't have time to drink yours!

I've done both and I know which I prefer!

The best thing you can do is to get all the booze in the kitchen and clear a couple of chairs so people keep coming in to chat and refill their/your glass.

Btw, am only 26. But have been doing Christmas dinner for the last 10 years. I love it.

I think it is more stressful, for me because the meat costs £50 so I don't want to fark that up, and I am cooking for more people than usual who I want to enjoy their lunch more than a normal lunch, as it is a special day for everyone.

This year, MIL is offering more scope creep than usual and I am accepting gratefully. Its interesting talking to my Mum and seeing how MIL is this year after I've done it for about 7 years. They both seemed evry relieved not to be doing it any more at first, but gradually are missing the providing and as my interest in it wanes a little, I am very pleased to have their homemade Christmas puddings, bread sauces etc.

MrsDingDong - I am going to rest my turkey for one and a half hours this year, covered in foil, copious teatowels and a towel. You could stick it on a big platter and put it anywhere warm, like the airing cupboard. Really doesn't need to be in the kitchen, until its time to carve it.

Oh see Littlereddragon I would find your easy christmas dinner scenario more annoying than the second. I like my own space when cooking and cannot be doing with folk ( namely DH) fiddling around in my way and stirring stuff, drives me crazy

we have open plan downstairs now so holeing oneself up away in the kitchen is no longer an option. it does mean I get masses of help and am never away from the action. if I want privacy for a bit I go for an extended loo break

Fair enough rookie.

My mum's preferred method is to fly around like a crazy thing, swear at any males who enter the kitchen and get into a huge hot panic by insisting she'll get dinner on the table by 7.30 (no-one else cares). So, each to their own!

It was just a bit of a revelation when I realized I don't have to do it mum's way and it's so much nicer when people are around and chatting instead of leaving you alone.

I'd love one of those houses with a kitchen that's big enough for a sofa and table at one end, so people could come in and sit there ... mmm, one day ...

I don't get it either. I'm not cooking this year but I usually roast a chicken with crispy bacon, make chipolatas, roast potatoes and veg. We have a homemade starter and pudding. I usually cook for 6+. It's no more difficult than making a sunday roast, I can't understand why people get in such a state about it.

If you're so worried about cooking the turkey that you're up at 4am to get it in the oven, perhaps it's time to select a smaller bird ? Why do people buy gigantic turkeys, only to moan about using up the leftovers adn then throw most of it away ? It's bizarre.

I am cooking a FEAST this year so it is rather more involved than usual, but most of the time I would agree with your.

I am drinking and cooking already, if people can move tomorrow after I am done with them I will be deeply impressed!

It's only stressful because the stakes are higher.

My in-laws are Serious about food. They're not brilliant cooks, or anything - I mean, they're fine, but it's just food - but they really, really care. They'll prepare a three course lunch and start talking about whether to start making the mid-afternoon snacks during the pudding course. They also care Very Deeply about Christmas; one has to have the Christmas plates, polish the proper silver, get out the Christmas tablecloth, there are a billion decorations on the tree, etc., etc.

And this year they are coming to ours, and they clearly care that we (I, let's face it) do it Right. They've posted me recipes for their versions of stuffing, brandy butter, etc. They're probably going to be horrified that I do not have a Christmas tablecloth, and my house is a tinsel-free zone. Etc.

So it's not like a Sunday roast at all! It'll pass into family legend if the turkey is dry, there'll be years of "of course tortoise doesn't really go in for showing festive spirit, but then she doesn't really have a family, poor thing", etc., etc.

So, yes, I get in a tizzy.

my mum always used to find it hard work, but i often find there's not much to do - the last 30 mins is busy, but otherwise, just stick it in the oven & leave it.

mind you, we eat when we want whereas my dad always wanted it at 1.00 - by 1.05 he would be doing funny breathing & sucking noises due to the stress of lunch being late.

i also don't understand 'cooking it ahead' - i know loads of people who do this (usually older). they pretty much cook the entire meal, keep it in the fridge, then re-heat it to 'save time' why? you still need everything to be hot all at once, and you end up spending twice as long doing it, and ruin the taste. i really don't get it.

i think cooking for 10 people is challenging, in a fairly ordinary kitchen. making sure that everyone gets food - which is cooked at the same time, and dished hot.

all the while smiling and passing pleasentaries with peple who - lets face it, as family - you have to be with even if you don't want to be with.

then they each have their quirks. and i am already getting into a tiz just inagining one off hand comment from one single in law about how dry the meat is, or how lumpy the mash is - the ungrateful unthoughful BASTARDS. yes, i am already upset and i haven't even cooked it yet.

so come xmas day, i might just open the door and say " I'M SICK OF YOU" and close the door

yes, op. i think that is much much different to the usual steak n chips that dh gets

I love doing christmas dinner but would be pissed off doing it every year. This year was supposed to be my parents turn but my dad (who always cooks) has just had knee surgery and didn't know how mobile he'd be so we invited everybody to ours instead. It's turned out that dad is now quite mobile but likes coming to our house so it's become a joint effort. He'll pre-prepare the starters and bring them with him to be reheated, he'll prepare the bird but i'll cook it, i'll make the veggie option, hubby will prep the veg - we'll all play a part and all feel supported and not exploited!

Next year will be even better - we're all going away to a cottage in yorkshire for christmas. It's going to be great!

Well Custardo, thank you for the first genuine out loud chuckle (not coffee on keyboard ) that mn has ever given me.
Am grumpy on your behalf, I'll tell them off for you.

I find it incredibly easy - it's only a roast dinner after all. And they appear on the table by magic if I hand glasses of wine into the kitchen at regular intervals. I though all kitchens did this.

Which remind me, I;ve ben meaning to start a thread about how dp disappears every Sunday afternoon and on Christmas Day, and AIBU to quiz him about it.

Oh dear Tortoise I do feel for you ( btw have found own personal stressometer which is packing the bloody car for trip to SIL's then week in the lakes, lovely when we get there but if I forget one blinkin thing it will be talked about in frosty tones for the rest of the time)

I think sending their own recipes is a bit cheeky, actually a lot cheeky. There are certain elements that I like in a christmas dinner but rather than insist that the host provides them I do the dinner myself on a different date.

If I were you I would just revert to point A and buy everything from M&S then hide the wrappers. That way you would even have time to buy a christmas tablecloth.

Apropos I have never quite understood why there is such a market for christmas crockery. Surely this is only for people with money to burn and huge ginormous kitchens to store the stuff, and who are seriously weird.

By the time I got home from work they'd gone ahead and made the stuffing "for me", actually. So, whatever.

I like the idea of a kitchen that produces magic food in exchange for wine.

Not hard exactly but but everytime I see the M&S Christmas ad I wonder where I would cook that much food. My oven is definitely not that big.

I do find it stressful because I fear XH finding out about any aspect being less than absolute perfection and uses it against me.

YANBU... But I also wouldn't dream of going to M&S. Doing it from scratch isn't exactly brain surgery... although I do have the advantage of having a DH who loves cooking. He does get into a bit of a flap, but so long as I help with timing towards the end it's alright. He tends to want to dish up as soon as the puddings go in and before carving the turkey.... resulting in cold food. I even manage to wash up as we're going along too!

He made bread sauce yesterday, including baking the bread. The stuffing he made 2 weeks ago and froze when he got the sausage meat from the farmers market. I've veggie so had bog standard paxo which I made this morning.
I prepped the veg and made the yorkshire pudding mix this morning once we'd opened the pressies and before the in-laws arrived. (Roast potatoes, roast parsnips coated in parmesan, sprouts and sweet potato, carrot and parsnip mash.) He made some turkey gravy with the stock and various other things... I have bisto.

Okay there were only 5 of us today, but we've cooked for 14 before without any extra hassle.... except for lack of seats.

Its not technically difficult especially as I do a posh chicken and not a turkey but it is difficult to feed any number over 4 with a tiny oven as you have to cook the bird before the stuffing/pigs in blankets/roast parsnips go in - mind you that long resting was well worth it today. yum.

I dont like M&S food either - we get it all from borough market on christmas eve [pretentious emoticon]

With a double oven and/or a bloomin working grill it would be a piece of piss. Though tastier.

It is as hard or as easy as you want to make it.

Exactly.

If you do all the trimmings and you are cooking for lots of people, and have chosen a tricky recipe for various bits then it will be difficult and possibly more stressful.

If you chose more simple recipes or ones involving less prep it'll be less stressful.

You can also chose to cheat or not - depends how much you prioritise cooking the meal over having time to relax or play with the children/watch TV, etc.

For me Christmas Day is the one day I like to relax and not spend ages cooking. i love cooking, but sometimes I prioritse differently, like today.

So, there's the three of us, so we chose to cook the food we need in amounts we will eat without looking to have left overs. I am happy to buy pre-diced chorizo, ready peeled sprouts, etc. I always chose a veggie alt for me that goes with whatever meat I am doing too, so no extra recipe required. And I chose to do a duck recipe that involved about 4 minutes prep, rather than taking ages or hving to start one early this morning.

Tomorrow PILs are coming and the dinner ill be more elaborate and the roast beef takes more prep. But even so - I don;t do the silly faffy trimmings, so not stressful with timings, etc.

I don't think it is hard but it is quite labour intensive. I started this morning at about 7am and have only just sat down. But I do cook a lot and do everything from scratch with 3 puddings plus Christmas cake and truffle type things.

I also drank too much today so had to steam my puddings in one go.

well it would have been easier if DP hadn't buggered off with his Mum to visit his sister and granda at about 10.30, returning at 1.30, leaving me with our 2DC (7 years and 14 months) to make dinner......