Is this too many people for Christmas?

[thebradybunch]

We are hosting Christmas for the first time this year. Just us (family of 5, small child, toddler and newborn), our parents, siblings and their kids. However both our families are big and everyone has said they're coming.

This means we've got 18 adults, 10 children and 4 babies

For context we are all really close, and our families are all friends so that's not an issue. Also everyone will bring a dish so I won't be the only one cooking. I'm worried about how we will accommodate everyone and it not feel like chaos though.

I was planning on having them all come over at 2.30pm. Any tips on how to organise the day? I'm being massively thrown in the deep end here so need some advice from seasoned professionals!

• Our house isn't huge but it isn't small either. Our kitchen table can sit 10 people at a squeeze.
• We have a decent sized playroom for the kids with a big TV in it.
• Living room sofas and chairs can probably sit 10 people.

Have you got room for a second table? We have a fold down catering table kept in the shed that seats 8 that gets pulled out for such occasions. I also buy up white plates when they are on offer.
It's utterly doable but you need to manage expectations and be really clear about what you are offering. If others live close, can someone cook some of the meat and bring it over for example?

Wow thanks for all the replies. I appreciate the people who are outraged on my behalf but was our choice to suggest this for a few reasons - others not having space, family members having been through illness etc and really wanting to be together.

Some excellent ideas here. To answer a few questions:

• We have two ovens. A family member has said they have a hostess trolly and another family member lives close enough by that we can use their oven too.
• I can fit a pasting table and foldaway chairs in the kitchen so we could fit all adults around the table at the same time.
• I was planning on feeding the kids first and then putting on a Christmas movie in the playroom while the adults eat. Half of the kids are old enough to look after the little ones and the playroom is off the kitchen so we could also check on them.
• Every family coming is very hands on, good cooks, and pretty easy going so we will have a lot of help.
• As well as helping on the day, 3 of the guests have volunteered to help with any leftover cleaning the following morning.
• I could make it more like a Christmas party than a formal dinner.
• The house is relatively spacious so there will be bedrooms for babies to nap in.
• When I say newborn, the baby will be almost 3 months old by then so not really newborn anymore. That part doesn't phase me at all though. I've got an excellent baby carrier and third time round means I'm pretty chilled.

Also... for those who said to give people a time to leave... it's actually only the eating part that I'm finding logistically difficult. Once that's over I'm happy for everyone to stay as late as they like and make a party of it!

Honestly I also think it is just too many people.

Space, chairs and most importantly oven and hob space. You won't have enough space to cook the required amount properly.

The only option is a buffet and even then I would suggest unless you have a massive house it's going to be quite uncomfortable. Everyone is going to be so squashed. It sounds great in theory but then put it into practice and it's another matter.

Chair hire. Plates, cutlery, glasses etc.

Difficult but not impossible.

Get everyone to bring extra chairs beforehand and set them out in advance.
Workout where you will put the food out, sideboard, kitchen worktop. Everyone will help themselves.
Bamboo plates and cutlery, sealed cups for the kids to avoid spilling.
Feed kids first.
Everyone helps themselves to food and drinks.
Buffet style lunch/ dinner. Small Roast potatoes (one mouthful) sliced hot meat, salads, veg, pigs in blankets, everyone helps themselves and sits down wherever.
Plenty of bin bags, kitchen roll, tea towels.
Warm clothes for kids outside in the garden.
Assign tasks beforehand.
Everyone brings a dish. Allocate based on your past experience with their cooking, don't ask what people want to do it will take ages while they decide and you will end up
collating it and reassigning stuff. Just do it.

Good luck.

Ok here goes:

I do 22 people and LOVE it.

I do cook absolutely everything apart from desserts wich are brought by my best friend and i do a soup, starter and the xmas dinner has turkey and ham.

I get tables and chairs from the people that are coming, so my mum gives me extra chairs and my friend has extra foldable tables, it stretches along the kitchen through to the hall, you want to be able to sit everyone at a table. I personally dont think couch seating etc is as important as people will sit at the table and between rooms as the day goes on an dinner is finished.

I have a hostess trolley, passed down to me and its a life saver but the fact that everyone is doing a dish is fab!!!

Set up your table on xmas eve or the 23rd, cutlery and everything all on the table - i know it sounds simple but one year i forgot to set the table and it was carnage.

Use disposable tablecloths, amazon or tesco have good decent plastic type ones that wont disintegrate with a splash of water and so when the tables cleared of dishes you can lift and bin everything else.

I also do a table plan with wee place cards again just makes things a bit less chaotic so everyone takes their seat and there is no faffing bout when your serving.

You can NEVER have enough tea towels and loads or Christmas paper napkins on the table.

Have everyone arrive early so you can see what dishes you have and what needs to be heated up etc.

I hope you have a dishwasher, each course set it to the fastest possible wash to help with clear up.

We do clear and turn around the house when everyone leaves, yes we can be up till 3am doing it but walking down on boxing day to a house thats back to normal is an amazing feeling, then i just spend the rest of my day in jammies eating leftovers.

Honestly its me favorite day of the year, yes its busy but my kids love it and so does everyone else, as long as you have loads of food and drink and a place to sit everyone will be delighted.

Sounds like you already have lots of ideas of how to make it work.
Something I’d suggest to make it less chaotic is staggering arrival times based on what “jobs” people are doing to help. I know you said you’re planning to have everyone around at 2.30 but that would be really overwhelming I think because everyone would need greeting/instructions etc all at the same time. So I’d maybe have a core prep crew arriving maybe at 11ish to help with the set up, then stagger arrivals for others probably from 1ish every 15 minutes.
Have you thought about parking? Be really clear with people about that because if you’ve got say 8 cars all trying to park (and neighbours might have people round too) that might be stressful, and you want your guests to feel relaxed enough to get on with their jobs when they arrive! The more organised you can be with it the better, maybe even asking neighbours if they mind someone parking across their driveway if nobody is leaving their house that day etc, and then telling family, “Uncle Bob & Aunty Alice are parking across the driveway of Number 23, Grandma & Grandad are parking on our lawn” etc so everyone knows what’s happening.

We attend a family dinner like this. It’s honestly not my favorite because it is too chaotic and crowded for me, but most seem to enjoy it.

the key is folding tables and chairs. At one point most of the guests are sent off to one space to get out of the way. A few of the more able-bodied have been tasked with setting up the tables and chairs. They push back the furniture to make room.

Honestly, it's a lot. I had 10 adults for a full sit-down Christmas lunch last year and that was enough, even without any young children to worry about. I say that as someone who is not usually daunted by hosting Christmas, or biggish parties. Perhaps it felt worse because I'd also had 10 for Christmas Eve and 14 for Boxing Day. It was too much if I'm honest. I'm keeping it much smaller this year.

My American friend always does a Thanksgiving dinner for about 20-30 people including kids, and frankly, it's chaos. It ends up halfway between a hot roast dinner and a cold buffet, which doesn't work, in my opinion. And no-one can ever sit down comfortably.

I'd say have a Christmas Day with just your household, then do the big get-together on Boxing Day. Let everyone bring their leftovers of turkey, ham plus some more stuffing made up and ready to roast at your house. Eat the meat cold, the stuffing hot, and bung in some more chipolatas. If you have loads of oven space use the leftover potatoes and veg for bubble and squeak, or do baked jacket potatoes. Failing that, just boil and butter a huge pan of new potatoes. Some coleslaw, a simple salad, pickles etc. Some nice bread. Perfect, and SO much less stressful than trying to get a roast on the table on Christmas Day for so many people. The children will all be over-excited on CD as well, by BD they'll have calmed down a bit.

If you really want it to be on Christmas Day then don't try to do a full sit-down Christmas Roast, even with others helping and contributing, it's likely to be very hard work indeed.

Do a Christmassy buffet spread. Stuff like prawn cocktail, smoked salmon platter, charcuterie and cheese board, maybe a nice rice salad and a ham. Or a hot 'pot luck' with something like a big lasagne, or curries or a chilli that can be made in advance and frozen.

Then have your Christmas roast dinner quietly on Boxing Day, just the five of you.

I would personally have them all over either Xmas eve for a party (mince pies, buffet picky food etc) or Boxing Day (jacket potatoes, cold ham and meats, buffet food etc)

I think people might be disappointed (nothing personal but everyone has their own weird personal expectations/traditions of Christmas Day and with that many people you can’t please everyone no matter how hard you try!) for example aunt Maureen who always has to have prawn cocktail as a starter for the past 50 years, vs Uncle Bob who feels it’s not Christmas unless he has 5 different types of meat for the main and is disappointed that you don’t have mashed potato because you did roasties instead etc etc.

That way it’s less important that everyone has a seat at a table, it’s more relaxed and no expectations of what their Christmas Day should look like.

@Lillers I hadn't thought about either of those things but that makes sense.

We can pick up 2 families and 2 others could park at a new y family members and walk over.

Staggering arrival times is a great idea. I could have my family over first as there are less children on my side, so everything would be ready before the chaos!

32 people!
That's about 28 too many!

I cook for about 18 every year but about a week before Christmas and that takes pressure off the day itself. The first year I found it stressful but have the hang of it now. Harder when you have a couple of vegetarians or fussy eaters who don’t want this and that.
I have trestle tables and stacking chairs stored. Bought enough plates and cutlery. I clear a room and set up the tables a few days before. Make Jamie Oliver’s make ahead gravy many times in the weeks leading up to the day and store it in the freezer. Don’t use the star anise if you do it. I have maybe a gallon on gravy! I have two ovens and on this day, I could do with a third.
I put all the plates in the dishwasher so they are warm when I want them.
Cook the turkey well in advance of starting the dinner, it keeps warm if you cover it with foil and towels and in fact is much more tender for standing longer.
I also put a plug in, two ring hob in the utility room to steam the pudding as it’s out of the way.
I have 2 big aga trays for the roast potatoes and can do about 60 of them happily. I have about three separate steamers going for the veg and those can be steamed earlier to a point, turned off, then finished off when needed.
Dish up the first 8/10 plates completely then lay the remainder out to dish those up. Doing it like that ensures that dinners are completed quicker and stay warmer longer.
You have 28 people, could probably do it at a push but it sounds extremely stressful. Would be tempted to hire a hall with a kitchen for that, although you’d loose the ability to open a cupboard to grab something when needed.

I would invite one side of the family for lunch and one for an evening meal with a couple of hours crossover in the middle between meals. Big houseful 2-5 ish but 2 smaller more manageable meals.

Will half the older kids be willing to look after younger ones? Seems a little unfair

Totally get your point. I would feel the same if it were aunts, uncles and grandparents. However it's just our parents and siblings, who are basically our best friends, so they wouldn't have that attitude.

Ha that's way too many, you're mad! But this is part of the joy of Christmas, and I admire your attitude and wanting everyone to be welcome, it's lovely!

I read Nigella Lawson once said she puts a picnic blanket under the Christmas tree for the kids to eat their dinner on, you could do that? It'll be messy, but they'll probably love it!

Realistically as others have said it's too many for a sit down dinner, although as someone who has no family I'm envious. I think you have several options you just need to pick one. You either do a buffet type affair where the majority of stuff is cold, like salads cold cuts etc . Or a version of Christmas dinner where you have whole joints of meat carved with say a massive bowls of roasties, but that's it, so folks can help themselves, or you say actually it's not doable and downsize the affair. Unless you have done this before you won't have the utensils, big pots etc. let alone table settings cutlery etc. Glasses even. Good luck.

I have catered for various events of this size and more.
Including family parties of around 50 people, 30-50 at club events and 30+ camping.

If you want to do a sit down meal, you must sort out the seating. You have 18 adults (plus 4 babies who would probably need to be next to a parent) and 10 children.
That is a huge amount of food to cook! If, and only if, you can sort out the seating (make the playroom into a temporary dining room with extra folding tables and chairs?) then it's just doable but 1/ Give others things to bring (have a list or you will get 10 bowls of potato salad and no stuffing) including starters, puddings, snacks, sides like stuffing, bread sauce ect.
2/ Hire huge pans for the veg- imagine how many spuds/ carrots/peas/sprouts 😳 and gallons of gravy!
3/ How big is your oven? Roasties for 30 plus a turkey the size of an ostrich!

I have hired a commercial cooker before- it had 8 burners iirc - and put it in the garage.

4/ have a rota for washing up!

A much better solution would be a Christmas buffet- again, play room as temporary dining room, list of things for guests to bring.
Menu: whole ham and turkey cooked the day before. Cheese, sausage rolls (frozen) salads, jacket potatoes, plus whatever else everyone wants.

It will be chaos! It will be noisy! It will be hard work, but it could be fun.

Finally- put up a gazebo in the garden for smokers and anyone who wants a bit of peace and quiet!

We often have this level of nonsense in my family.
The elders go at the tables always, but if capable then after the meal they move to the sofa with dessert in hand to free up a few spaces.
Us adults sit on the floors sofas etc and watch over the kids in shifts. Christmas Dinner for elders is served to a standard. The rest of us treat it like a buffet or snack or once a space is free we go to table. Usually underserve a plate and keep going for more so that we don't drop food.
Kids kept in one area only with 2x adults or more keeping an eye in total so we don't lose any, unless they're over 10.

My aunt was a professional caterer though - I think you may have it harder keeping up with the food rather than seating people. Us younger adults also kept out the kitchen in general unless we got summoned to fill dishwasher and do a bit of washing or serve something to keep it running like clockwork.
Have fun!
We also do above madness for many bbqs in summer and birthdays etc. Rule, elders and less able at table. The rest picnic or make do.

I'd put the (borrowed) tables and chairs in the playroom, use the kitchen table to place all the dishes etc, kids play in the lounge and paper plates. I'd have a go I think!

Not enough oven space for a traditional Christmas dinner.
Not enough sitting space for general entertaining and or a buffet either.
Replan or repent I say!

Issue here is whether you have oven space to cook the food required for that many people to eat at the same time? We have a range cooker with 2 ovens and a separate electric/fan oven… struggles to do food for 13-14 at Christmas. And do you have the cutler/crockery and space to stack it between courses, or will someone have to wash up in order to have plates for desert etc?

I’d say seating was far from the main concern, unless you are doing (as other PP’s suggest) a buffet arrangement where you can serve cold food amongst the hot. The second factor is - will you/they really enjoy a formal meal with so many people and so much work involved.

IMHO, this is too many for Christmas Lunch, but fine for a Boxing day party/buffet.

I would book Christmas dinner at a pub/ restaurant (everyone pays for their own meal) then maybe offer to host drinks/pudding at your's in the afternoon.

We regularly have over 30 people, with a huge range of ages. Not usually at our house, but it might be this year.

However, it's a hot Christmas here so a simple, cold buffet of meat & salad. Houses are open plan so bigger area. Everyone brings their share of food & helps set up & clean up. Extra chairs & tables are sourced from whoever has them. No one person is stuck in a kitchen hosting or cleaning up.

I couldn't do a cooked meal & think it's horrific that one person does it all. I'd run away!!

I think I’d consider looking for a village hall or community centre nearby and enquiring about hiring it. It’d have trestle tables and chairs etc. Everyone cook the food at home and bring it across, covered.