about christmas food shop?

[Purplesky2]

I have just done an online shop and without alcohol (going to lidl) it is £300. This includes a 7kg turkey and a ham. It's seems a lot. This is for Christmas Day and Boxing Day to feed 8 people for 3 meals both days. It is my first year hosting

The supermarkets round here are only closed on Christmas Day.

I realise that a lot of shops are open on Boxing Day but for me Christmas is about getting together with family and shutting out reality. I won't want to set foot in a shop until the 29th so I need to have everything covered :)

Sainsbury, Tesco and Asda are all open on Boxing Day, so no danger of being caught out if you do have a last minute emergency. Although, TBF, Waitrose are shut on Boxing Day.

Everything round here reopens Boxing Day or at the latest the day after.

£300 is most of my usual monthly food budget, so I would have a mental block on spending anything like that on food for such a short time, even if it was for 8 people.

I admit though that it has been years since I had to host any form of Christmas, so I may be a bit behind the times.

I think it sounds about right - 8 adults eat a lot and you don't want to run out of food. Plus if you are buying stuff rather than making form scratch the price will rocket. If I was hosting a dinner party for 8 the bill will often come to over £100 and that's for one meal - 4 adults and 4 children with out alcohol!

Doesn't sound too bad, just try not to open all the cakes and snacks etc at once, and there's no reason to waste any - shove a chunk of leftover turkey in the freezer and enjoy leftovers for a couple days after all the guests push off. Apart from milk, I hope to avoid shops from Xmas Eve until NYE.

Ive got 3 different food deliveries coming for Christmas, Iceland, Ocado and Tesco and I've already done a Lidl shop for £60. It's coming in at £310 and that's for just 4 of us without alcohol. DH will do a separate shop for that probably spending about a £100. I imagine we will have a few more meals out of all that shopping than just Christmas dinner but it does add up treats are expensive but it's the one time of year to go a bit mad

MusicalFanjo
You can't not tell the difference between coca cola and the cheap 20p cola they taste nothing like each other

Fair point, what I should have said is "I don't give a shit if they taste different, one's 30p the other's £2, bring your own if you're fussy"

Sounds about right to me - hosting Christmas is very expensive! Obv you'll have left overs etc afterwards, but the actual up-front cost of shopping for a celebration for 8 adults for 2 days is eye-watering.

I make various goodies in advance - Christmas cake, mincemeat/mince pies, etc in advance, which spreads the cost but probably isn't a whole lot cheaper. I buy the cheapest snacks I can find, and try and make Christmas eve the day we prep stuff in advance (so I don't buy pre-prepared veg etc). But it's still expensive!

Personally I'd far rather skimp on gifts than on food - eating together is a big part of a Christmas celebration, and miserly portions or misery food just aren't celebratory.

Always worth planning meals for the next few days using up leftovers - eg buy mayonnaise and tomatoes for the turkey sandwiches , extra bacon for the stir-fry Christmas veg, etc.

I share your pain and have done for a good few years - people just don't realise how much it costs to host Christmas.

That does sound like alot,there's 7 of us in our family.I think for £300,I'd want to be getting all the meals for Christmas day,Boxing day,bits for new years eve(frozen)and alcohol.

I've just done online shop for 6 for £200 but for a whole week. Sounds expensive to me. I went for two big chickens rather than Turkey

It sounds very expensive to me, especially as it doesn't include alcohol. But then, I am a real 'keep the costs down' Asda shopper!

The only way I can work it out in my mind is to pro rata it to £150 for 4 (which is our family size). For two days food.

That's an awful lot as far as i'm concerned, far more than we'd spend. Yes, we get more meat than usual and cook the veggies in a nicer way for the main meal...plus have a couple of nicer desserts than usual. But when alls said and done, ingredients-wise, the Christmas meal is 'just' a cooked dinner - and for 4 people, excluding meat, costs me about a fiver.

The extras we buy are cheeses and pates, a few more crisps and chocolates than usual. Not £150's worth for two days though.

Sounds ok to me, it's ama I g how things add up!

Amazing even!

It sound loads. We have usually 14-17 on Christmas Eve and 8-10 on Christmas Day. I've never spent more than £200 lots of alcohol and £55ish Turkey. We do buy things like sacks of spuds and carrots for £5 etc though.

We try to buy a lot in advance, as well. Eg, my DC like schloer, and a month or so ago the bottles were on a multi buy deal, so we bought them then. We also bought small mixer cans on a multi buy deal, and actually, tonic is one of those things that is often sold out everywhere just before Christmas.

Alcohol is often on a deal before Christmas, too. We are pretty much stocked up, already.

I also get nuts and so on, but DH is greedy, and eats them, and I have to reorder them, anyway. Grrrrr!

I know people are saying the shops are open on Boxing day, but if you are meal planning things that can be made in advance (like cooking a ham on Chrsitmas eve you'll serve cold on boxing day lunch) then it's both easier to just order it all in one go in advance, and makes no difference, other than mentally to have not spent £300 in one go, rather than 3 lots of £100...

And boxing day morning I want to be doing a fast clean from Christmas day mess then preping for the next round of people visiting, not giving up an hour or so of that to go shopping again, if there's an hour or so spare on Boxing day morning I'll be sitting down with laptop, on here reading the Christmas day fights stories and drinking a coffee/eating some cake. Driving to Sainburys seems a bit of a crap way to spend that time when with a little planning I can make sure I have all the food I need in the house already...

DinosaursRoar I like your style, agree completely!

Sorry, I just can't get past the idea of sloe gin for breakfast on Boxing Day or Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, New Years Day, any day over the festive period...

I can see where you're coming from, OP - doing the big shop for Christmas can be completely horrendous and you really do need to do a list and stick to it. If you're hosting that many people, I'd have suggested to them that they bring bits and pieces - whoever up there /|\ who said that the money goes on the extras is damn right. I host Christmas dinner for our family of 4 and my mum and dad, who are always very good at asking what they should bring. They tend to bring loads of nibbles for Boxing Day, puddings, some booze etc. It all mounts up.

One of the most demoralising things is if you're not an avid menu planner (I'm not) and a couple of days after you've done the big food shop for Christmas Eve/Christmas Day/Boxing Day, you realise you still need to go out AGAIN immediately after the 26th, for 'normal' food. I've got picky eaters at home who will still need their basics and staples.

But there's no way any of it ought to be wasted. If you have extra vegetables left over after a big meal, one of the delights of post-Christmas cooking is bubble and squeak, surely? Or soup? Nobody ought to be throwing away roast meat even off their plates. do you have a dog? and I cannot get my head around anyone who wouldn't keep the carcass of a roast, be it beef, turkey or chicken, to pick at, serve cold from, make into curry or shepherd's pie or risotto or anything!

They often sell far too many brussel sprouts in a pack/stalk. It seems everyone wants to put a only a token amount on their plate. Instead of cooking them all, hold some back from this salad on boxing day. I've made it before and it is tasty, healthy and can be made ahead if you are feeding a crowd:

ohsheglows.com/2012/11/05/fall-detox-salad-hurricane-sandy-fundraiser-update/

For me, it is just the sort of thing that hits the spot after too much gluttony.

Too many sprouts on a stalk ?

I have found my business plan for Lord Sugar - dwarf sprouts, just for Christmas

We're a family of 6 and £300 is our entire monthly food budget! I know it's Christmas and all but wow! That sounds very excessive

Sounds fair enough to me - assuming most of your 8 are adults and you're buying decent quality and some extras/luxuries.

We're usually just the three of us Christmas Day but we're foodie types (DH a chef and me and enthusiastic amateur that does all the cooking at home) and I can well imagine spending that kind of money, although would probably include some booze and I'd be hoping for leftovers!