to not be particularly happy about cooking Christmas dinner for 18 people on Christmas day?

[luckymummy74]

That would be 8 adults and 10 kids aged between 1 and 16 yrs of age. It will involve 3 highchairs ( I have one).

Also, 4 veggies (not that I'm anti-veggie, on the contrary, I eat a lot of veggie food) but 2 eat fish and 2 don't, so I will have to cook 3 separate meals in total.

A lot of the kids are quite fussy too.....

I don't really have room in my house for this many people.

DH thinks I'm being unreasonable that I'm not very enthusiastic about this.....

Any thoughts, or tips to how to get thru the day?!!!

I wouldn't do starters for Christmas dinner!

And don't do alternative puds, either. Christmas pud, or ice cream / mince pies.

Can you ask anyone to bring over an extra microwave / combi oven or warming device to keep stuff hot? The logistics of having that much food on the go is quite daunting, I must say!

I just got massive bags of frozen corn and petits pois - I put my foot down at sprouts - I hate them and since it was my house - I refused to do them.

dh did all the potato peeling the night before - just get as big potatoes as you can - less fiddly to peel. And I supplemented roasties with tubs of mash from tesco's - no additives or anything and only 99p per tub - which feeds about 3 or 4.

You can get massive bags of king prawns from Costco or Makro for about £8 - I just let them defrost the day before and made a marie rose sauce and chopped up a couple of iceberg lettuces. That can be ready to go as soon as you like.

oh yes sil did Xmas cake, fil did his rather alchoholic xmas pud - children had to stay away!! We supplied ice cream.

The hardest part for me was the coffee at the end as the kettle had to be boiled again and again.

I'm already feeling tetchy at just my mum coming over. I don't do a 'Xmas meal', we have pasta or beans on toast but mum is insisting on roasty stuff. And I only have 5 plates. Mum makes 6.

What you need is a hostess trolly

'I had to agree to it in the end. Believe me, it was very begrudgingly!! '

No, no you don't.

I agree with colditz.

Sorry, I'm just not guilted into jack.

If others want to host it, hey, that's there road for their backs.

There's no law saying I've got to wear the hair shirt just because they're willing to.

'we have pasta or beans on toast but mum is insisting on roasty stuff. And I only have 5 plates. Mum makes 6.'

Did you tell her that she could cook it, then, and bring it?

as for oven space, it was OK

turkey cooks while we're at church, out and covered in foil.

cooked chipolatas while we ate breakfast and zapped them in the microwave later.

oven roast veg (2 huge trays) go into oven next and garlic cream pots in top oven

that leaves the 4 rings for gravy, bread sauce and another veg/more potatoes. red cabbage in microwave, wrap stuffing in foil and jam it in a free corner of the oven.

it was fine but i did have lists!!

I kept starters and puds very simple - pretty much all made in advance.

starters and puds!!
I'm with expat - and yeah, if my mum insists on roast she can farking well cook it. Xmas cheer bah humbug

"he feels it's our turn"

the golden word is 'OUR'

make the preparations 50/50 !

Let him do it then, if he feels it's your turn. Leave it entirely to him. Sit in the living room, playing with your children, until the meal is served.

i couldn't agree more, colditz.

i wouldn't feel an iota of guilt about it, either.

can you phyiscally seat 18 round your table?

Funnily, I think I am doing Christmas dinnner for 6 or 7 this year, as I have for 3 years running. But I like cooking Christmas dinner. I enjoy having a whole meal cooked just the way I want it. Plus, I do a nice leg of lamb!

i did it last year and enjoyed it. but only for 8 people.

ordered in the ham, too.

it's fun when it's a team effort.

when it's family coming over treating it like a fecking restaurant, though, no, i'm not down with that.

I've never cooked a Christmas dinner.

we have a similar number'ish if we all get together and faddy food eaters. Decided long ago that if we wanted to get together at Xmas, whomevers house it was would not have to do all the cooking.

So now reagrdless of where we have it, we split the tasks across the four parts of the family as appropriate depending on how far they're coming etc.

One person (usually me) orchestrates.

One family (local to venue) prepares veg the night before and brings round in the morning to cook

One local family family does turkey overnight

Host does tabel/cutlery/crockery

one does puddings

Mum does gravy or there'd be a riot

Get one of the veggies to do veggie pie (or similar and bring with them).

If you are going to make a habit of it, its unreasonable to expect one family to go to effort and expense... so time to set a few new family traditions.

I also don't faff around with a million pudding garnishes etc (I tell everyone what I've planned and let them bring more if they feel they need to).

The key is relaxed hospitality not a mountani of food that gets thrown away, matching plates and a stressed host.

or what Expat said just now in two lines...

our "main" course dish for veggies is caulflower cheese! It's always eaten by everyone and can be made day beore but then we don;t really stand on ceremony in the Kewcumber houshold. Gravy roasties cranbeery sauce and caulflower cheese would do most of us just fine with a token bit of turkey thrown in for the meat eaters!

me neither motherinferiordh does it

my sister loves to host and has a huge house.

so it's always:
day before, off to Whole Foods as a family to shop for the food and wine together, with a pitstop at Jewish bakery for breakfast rolls, danishes, etc.

spend teh evening drinking lovely wine and doing food prep. the men organise the meat, which is always BBQd or smoked because it's Texas. they do all the marinades and chopping and such whilst drinking beer.

a fun game, slightly drunken, like scrabble or cards before bed, coffeemaker programmed to start itself in the morning.

everyone gets up happy and works together to get the meal organised.

everyone helps with clearing up and cleaning up, then watch American football.

it's when hyou have one or two people doing everything that it's a pain in the arse.

we've never really done Xmas. DH's parents used to go ski-ing every year and my mum was too far away so it was just me, DH and the 3 or 4 kids depending on year.
Last 2 Xmas's have been spent in hospital as dd has great timing for her seizures. This year, as mum has moved close by she has invited herself over.
I'm trying to get a carer from an agency for Xmas day and Boxing day otherwise its no holiday at all. Just 24 hours of caring for dd.
But generally its a 'normal' day for us.

do some pizza, garlic bread and salad and then apologise and say you forgot it was christmas