I don't get the big deal over Christmas food shop

[NeverUseThisName]

Thread after thread about the hideousness of the Christmas food shop, starving to death in queues, hysteria in the pickles aisle, road-rage in the carpark, substitutions and OOS in the orders etc etc.

Why do people put themselves through this?

Why don't people prepare early? It reduces the strain and spreads the cost.

We prepped all our meat and froze it a few weeks ago. Everything that can be made ahead or is long-dated, like cake, pudding, biscuits, booze etc, was made or bought in the past month or two. Ingredients that are essential for last-minute cooking were also bought early. All that's left to buy is fresh stuff, like milk and veg. Not huge amounts of stuff, and things that we can compromise on if something's OOS.

Are we weird to do it this way?

And this is not a stealth boast. We prepare in exactly the same way for any big festive occasion.

(Post edited by MNHQ)

No big deal here. I booked my supermarket delivery for yesterday weeks ago, have got a Food to Order slot to pick up the rest tomorrow. I'll grab some bread and milk at the same time.

I made my cake in October, iced it this morning. I made my pudding and mincemeat in November. Made a big batch of mince pies this morning along with some cupcakes and gingerbread.

I did pop to town today to get some veg from the farmers market. The supermarket car park was a mess of road rage and apparently lots of the shelves inside were empty. Glad I didn't have to go in.

I do all of the presents around October as during the rest of the year I save so much each month. As for the food, we literally spent £7 purely by using reward cards, club card, Sainsbury’s, co-op. Got all the dry stuff from Tesco. Got the meat a few weeks back from Sainsbury’s and today got the fruit and veg from co-op. If your doing food shopping you might aswell use it and reep the benefits at the end.

I'm sorry about that, ohtheholidays.

What do you guys eat

The vast majority of food in our Christmas shop (or any shop for that matter) would go off/not be at its best

That is rough ohtheholidays. I hope 2018 is a gentler, happier year for you.

We prepped all our meat and froze it a few weeks ago

I wouldn’t want meat prepped and frozen in advance. We couldn’t buy the meat until today as we wanted a fresh beef fillet from the butcher, and until today the dates were too short. We also want our veg fresh, for obvious reasons.

I can't store in advance as our kitchen is tiny, even our fridge freezer is smaller than standard size. We are moving next year and will have a bigger kitchen and will be getting an American fridge freezer so stockpiling and batch cooking aplenty can occur!

I don't find the shop stressful in the slightest though. Most done online, and just picked up a few bits missed/OOS in town today. Thankfully I no longer suffer crippling social anxiety as I used to so crowded shops aren't an issue these days, plus this year was made more fun as the 8wo baby got lots of Awww type comments :o

I like to go last minute food shopping as I manage to get lots of Xmas bargains and am able to buy things that have been reduced that otherwise I would not be able to afford.

Because I eat all the nice things and then have to buy them all again.

No it's not. Many people do it 'your' way and lots of people do it their way, you're not as whacky and out there as you seem to think.

Until this thread, virtually all I had read was about last-minute preparations.

It is interesting to read that some people don't like frozen meat, and that some people aren't bothered about crowded shops (I guess that's why they're not posting about the shops!)

TBH I had forgotten about bonuses. It's been years since I worked in a job where you got bonuses, and budgeted for them. We budget on the same income all year round, hence we spread costs wherever possible. But, yes, I remember planning to get things when I got my bonus.

We are a large family so our Christmas shop is the same size as our regular weekly shop. Would hate to think I was being judged today when I just went shopping and had a massively full trolley just like I do every week. I did add a few things that I wouldn't normally buy, pastries etc for Christmas morning breakfast and the extra fresh veg for Christmas dinner but other than that it was the usual.

Until this thread, virtually all I had read was about last-minute preparations

I guess people don’t tend to start threads saying ‘I’m all prepped for Christmas, everything is fine’ do they? Would be pretty dull. And if someone starts a thread saying ‘I’m so stressed, everything is being done last minute’, you’d only really bother replying if you were in the same boat.

I was pretty organised this year, and also froze pre-prep'd stuff early. I still needed to go out and buy more mince pies milk etc today though. I might not have been doing a big shop but I was still parking and queuing ĺike everyone else.

I overheard a couple of ladies moaning in the aisles - saying "this is ridiculous, what do people think is going to happen, shops used to be shut for 4 days and it was never like this". I wanted to point out that they were there just like everyone else. You can't moan about queues when you are the queue.

Give me a crowded shop a few days before Xmas over thinking about Xmas in October and November any time!

You prepare so much for one day OP, I couldn't be arsed with all that prep.
I don't get the big deal, why does it take you so long?

My mum started buying alcohol for xmas back in about august. Since then she has had to replace the dissarano 4 times because we have drunk it. 🍸🍸
So planning and buying early doesnt always work. 😊

Frozen meat from weeks ago? Bleugh! Honestly that sounds rank.

I had a very civilised visit to our wonderful local butcher today who had my order all made up and ready (with a free warm mince pie and a nice chat as a bonus). Then onto M&S to pick up rest of food order, they do time slots for collection, no queue, cheerful staff, spaces in car park. No stress, or ramming or rage to be seen anywhere.

Also, buying in advance means what you're buying either isn't fresh or you have the space to store it. We don't have freezer space and everything is fresh, exceptions being the cranberry sauce and christmas pudding, so has to be bought this weekend. But it really wasn't a big deal. We went this morning at 9am and were done in an hour. We're only cooking for 5 though! 3 of us and my parents. When there is a massive family Christmas and there's 35 people and 3 days worth of food, yes, it's chaos (but thankfully, not at our house!).

I went to get my fresh veg today, and milk. Exactly the same as you OP.

It was mental and me being there contributed to that.

Yeah, I don’t get all the prep either. How much are you really needing to prep?
The only ‘extra’ things we’ve really bought are the fillet of beef and some really nice cheeses.

Wow you are truly amazing ! Me having 4 kids and working fulltine is obviously just super rubbish and un organised ! How many kids do you have ? And do you work ?

I breezed into both Lidl and Morrison’s a couple of hours ago, parked easily both times, no queues to pay, got everything I needed and both shops done within the hour despite having dd in tow.

Suppose I could have done it really early, but IME leaving it until really late works just as well.

I knew you'd get slaughtered for that, OP, but I agree with you. Christmas comes every year on the same date, it's not exactly a surprise. I know catering for a large party is a lot of work, but it's not as if it gets sprung on anyone and planning ahead does make it much easier and cheaper.

OBVIOUSLY I'm not talking about people with life crises, disabilities, serious financial problems and so on. But yeah, assuming it's a 'normal' life (for want of a better word), it's not a Herculean task to plan it ahead and you don't have to be Nigella Lawson to work out that it'll be harder if you leave it all to the last minute.

I'd never ever want frozen meat either ! Being a farmers wife I'm lucky that we have our own beef and turkey . Frozen meat is just AWFUL and quite frankly if frozen was all that was to be offered I'd rather do without because it has zero flavour