To say sod it and have steak and chips?

[Sundancer77]

We live abroad and this year won’t be returning to the uk for Christmas. It’s myself, my dp, dd 17 months and our dog. I was writing the list for the Christmas Day meal/Christmas food.. the meat, veg, starters, desserts, breakfast, booze, chocs, cheese & crackers, nibbles, Xmas eve meal etc etc and we got to talking about the price..we’d be spending roughly the same amount for the food that lasts 2-3 days as probably a two week shop..plus, cooking time, washing up and so on. My dp suggested having a good steak, chips and wine..less cost, hassle, more time to relax and play with Dd and it tastes good...I do like the idea but still can’t feeling it’s not ‘Christmassy’ enough and should we do the proper Xmas day dinner with all the trimmings..what would you do?

@dottiedodah Am not in the UK. Out of curiosity (and to educate myself) I may ring one or two of them later to see if they are open on Christmas Day.

Eat whatever you want.

We let the DC choose what we eat for Christmas dinner. Where DH comes from there is no traditional dinner so he thinks the whole turkey thing is crazy. We have previously had: spag bol, winter walk and grilled sausages on the way, steak and chips, pasta and tomato sauce. The prize for weirdest Christmas lunch has to go to the time they requested vegetable soup 😂

Have whatever you want. You dont need permission from anyone.
We do exactly that- not steak but whatever we fancy. We eat well all year round so dont feel the need to eat something specific just because its xmas. More importantly my DC is young, no way am I slaving away the entire day when I'd rather spend time with him. We usually have a big breakfast at home, go out for a nice xmas lunch, have a relaxed afternoon and then make a curry or something easy.

Reading this with interest, I would definitely do what you want to do.

Your dc is too young to notice any difference, mine are older so I want to keep up the tradition for myself as much as them.

I'm on my own with two dc for Christmas but I love turkey and ham dinner but dc aren't bothered. I'm committing to cooking it but making things easy on myself, sachet of steamfresh veg as it's only for me, dd is having turkey & mash & gravy, ds will have mash with butter and maybe some ham and I'll have turkey/ham/stuffing/gravy/chips and steamfresh veg.

Trying to figure out where I can get a small enough crown so that I'm not looking at it for months like last year

We’re going out for a curry xmas day
Nobody here likes Roast dinners ( one veggie and 3 almost veggies)

Sounds perfect to me!

We've done this before and it was lovely - our 3 DC each chose one component of the xmas day meal that they wanted, so we had steak with blue cheese sauce, chips, prawns and cheesecake. It was fab, and much less cooking/prep time than a traditional roast. The next year we had a BBQ (lived in NZ) and have always vowed we'd never get into doing a full roast on xmas day again. I can do a roast any weekend of the year, but it's rare to have all of us together at home for the day (sports mad children mean it's a rare weekends when we're not on sidelines) so I treasure a chilled day together, and all of us choosing and helping make our lunch helps with that.

I have had Christmas dinners that don't involve turkey - one year I was skiing in Italy so I had pizza up on the mountain. Another year I had smoked salmon and scrambled eggs (I lived on my own, and I love salmon!). Other years when we go away in camper van I have had a 'nice' M+S ready meal, throw in oven, with pre-prepped veg. Fab!

I love turkey so it would be no for me. But essentially Christmas dinner is exactly the same as a normal Sunday dinner except with a turkey crown instead of a chicken. We never have starters as we’d be too full for proper dinner.

If we're at home then I have always done roast turkey and trimmings, but if we go abroad I love it! No cooking and something different!