Does anyone else cheat at the Christmas meal? And I mean really cheat?

[bbface]

I keep hearing and reading about everyone making their own Christmas cake, cranberry sauce, cooking roasties in goose fat, making a trifle, delicious home made stuffing, ordering the turkey from a local farm shop... The list goes on.

Fact is, I cheat at almost everything, and without M&S I would be up the creek without a paddle. I buy one of their ready stuffed turkeys, I buy their sauces, their trimmings, their mince pies. Everyone basically. Oh, I make my own roasties, but the fuss and the mess I create.... You would think I was doing something truly special and inventive, as opposed to peeling potatoes and then bunging them in the oven.

I have to go very quiet when discussions turn to recipes, as I have nothing to contribute, other than the latest new trimmings at marks. I love reading the Sunday supplements about how to cook the tastiest this and that, but I never actually deliver the goods.

My family are all very sweet about about it, and make a big deal about what a lovely meal I have served, when in reality my job has been to manage all the different oven timings for my various dishes.

Does anyone else cheat? Or is it just me, as it sure as hell feels like that!!!!!

M&S all the way, own roasties, stuffing and, controversially, Yorkshire puddings.

Why do you call it cheating? I get almost everything for Xmas from M&S and it's bloody lovely! This includes everything for the main meal, pud and trifle, Xmas cake... the lot! I don't call it cheating though, it's just Xmas food from M&S!

@AllSnowballsAndNoKnickers

....Do you like to cook? Do you feel you just can't do it? My friend can't really do it (and hates it) so every year I make their Christmas gravy for them! It's become a bit of a tradition

Oh please share your method and recipe, do you make this ahead of Christmas day? I love good gravy 😋

ha I've just realised the zombieness that post was from 2012 🤣

I think everyone else is the same TBH! All those glossy magazines with Christmas Turkey and all the trimmings, surely all of us just go Ahhh and turn the page! I made my own Christmas cake for over 20 years ! Now a devotee of dear old M and S /Sainsburys /Waitrose et al! My DGM( long gone much missed ) said that during the 50s she had to make all her own sausage rolls /mince pies /pud as no shop bought avaliable! If she could ,she would have welcomed popping some shop bought SR ,into the oven while she sat down for half an hour with a cheeky Sherry (like her own DGD)! Take all the short cuts you can IMO!

M&S here too. I am usually working until a day or two before Christmas and with that and all the cards/presents/house cleaning etc to do as well, there's not enough time to do everything from scratch plus It's my Christmas Day too and I don't want to spend all day in the kitchen. I serve up a lovely delicious dinner and don't look upon it as cheating. No one has ever complained - if they did I'd tell them there's the kitchen, feel free to have a bash yourself, off you go

Yes - and it is hard work!

No problem doing that - M&S stuff is great - except that a lot of people couldn’t afford to!

When queueing to pay for my turkey and a few other bits in M&S once, I was right behind a woman whose trolley was full of absolutely everything ready made. From the turkey ready stuffed, garnished with streaky bacon, and in a foil tray ready to just shove in the oven - down to the prepped veg, ready made roasties and everything else imaginable.

Her bill (yes, of course I had a good old nose) was staggering, even to me, and we’re comfortably off.
But good luck to anyone who can afford it and thinks it’s well worth the money.

I buy bread sauce, cranberry sauce and pigs in blankets but I make the rest because I really enjoy cooking Christmas dinner. Wouldn't turn my nose up at pre made stuff though, sounds lovely

I’m sorry if you don’t source, pick and cook your own cranberries and rear your turkey from an egg, then I call cheat!

Well, Mary Berry does it all on Christmas day, and she probably has 30 people round for Christmas lunch,then she does it all again on Boxing day, and still fits the time in to watch herself cooking on the telly, She only has a few minutes break to watch the Queens speech. !!

Doesn't everyone?

Life is too short. It always tastes great too. You are still doing the work and not going out and paying a fortune for an Xmas meal in a restaurant (although there is absolutely nothing wrong with that either)

I cheat on meals all year round. I love pre cut vegetables, pre made mashed potatoes, pre marinaded meat etc. Anything that's ready to go into the oven!

But on Christmas day I do make an effort to make everything from scratch. Not that all that is "cheating" anyway - it's just saving time, and if you can afford it then why not? My mother drives me crazy about it telling me about how much I could save if I just did some of this stuff myself! It's true, but although I CAN cook, there are so many other things I could be doing.

I don't cheat as I don't cook a thing. DH does it all from scratch.

His Yorkshire's are like Elephant knees, although they obviously have no place on a turkey dinner.

It's his hobby and who am I to interfere in his hobby! I'm not stupid. :)

I'm sort of a half cheat, in that whilst I do cook everything on our Christmas dinner, I do so using cheat methods to make the day as stress free as possible. For instance I cook and portion my sausage meat stuffing the day before, and the day of just wack the plate with all the portions on in the microwave. Turkey goes in the oven first and rests for hours to the oven is free for the potatoes and veg that I peeled and prepared the day before and left to stay fresh in water, overnight.

I definitely prefer a good quality shop bought mince pie to my home made ones.
I use ready made pastry for my sausage rolls.
I’ve never made a Christmas pudding in my life and I’ve only made one Christmas cake. (It was nice but not worth the effort)
I’m a terrific cook, but I prioritise, and I put huge effort into decorating the house, inside and out. Last year we had 4 trees up, all colour coordinated to the room!
Concentrate on what you are best at, if that means shopping at M&S for ready to serve desserts, veggies or platters, than so be it!

I do roasties and gravy, but everything else is brought in.

I go to my mums and she cooks!! Total cop out 😁

@snappyoldfart

We go out! I can't even be faffed pretending to like cooking.

You bumped a 12yo thread to tell us that?.

It’s not even new to go out we were doing that 20 years ago.

Who cares as long as it's edible, there is half a small Irish smallholding in potato variants and you don't run out of gravy?

I'd take an M&S Christmas dinner over the miserable one I had at the arsehole ex's mother's any time.

Hell, I'd have taken a Findus Christmas dinner over that. It would have been twice the size, for a start.

We always 'cheat'. I watched my lovely single mother slave away for hours in the kitchen every Christmas day for the three of us and missing all the films and chocolate on the sofa and present opening and decided we weren't going to do it that way. So it's M&S (or Morrison's) most of the way, and I feel zero guilt - if/when I have children at least I'll be able to enjoy the point of the day instead of breaking my back cooking what is, at the end of it, just another meal!

So get ordering now OP 😂

@snappyoldfart... 8 years! We need to talk!

I thought this thread was about people who leave the Christmas table to go and shag their brother in law.

If you serve food that people eat,and like that’s great. Crack on

If the dinner is acceptable then it doesn't matter if you've 'cheated' or not. It's one day - one big dinner which is over blown anyway. Many of us are not domestic goddesses and just do the best we can. Sit back and enjoy. Put your feet up. Christmas shouldn't be about being a nervy slave.