Christmas on a budget.

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I have to make dinner for three adults, one three year old vegetarian and a one year old waste disposal unit. I want to make it look good and special but I am a basic Sunday dinnerer ('tis a word!) and on a tight budget. About £60 to spend in Sainsbury's only for Chrostmas treats plus regular shopping as we have vouchers.

I'm also feeling like crap about the dact the DD's have only small cheap presents. I know they don't care but I'm beatibg myself up. I need a kick up the bum.

Hello wine and errors. Can't say no to free raffle wibe, me :(

It is only a Sunday dinner with knobs on.
Chicken, vegetables, roasties, pigs in blankets, gravy.
Skip the starter. Got candles for the table or any decorations you could put on the table to make it look pretty?
At the end of the day it's about spending time together. Christmas telly and spending time with the kids.
Don't feel guilty about not having a sledge load of gifts, the kids won't notice.
Get veg and stewing beef, chicken legs for casseroles. Mince for spag bol. Pasta bakes and Fat Jackets.
Sainsburys own brand is good for things like biscuits and crisps and cakes etc.
I'm sure there was a thread on here last week about reducing christmas costs.

Have you got someone coming for dinner? Could they bring the pudding or some wine?

I'm doing a chicken because turkey is too big for 1 adult and 2 children.

For vegetarian child, do they need a main 'meat'? I'm vege and my mum would make me 'pigs in blankets' from mini sos-mix sausages with quorn bacon wrapped round them. Even a vege sausage cut up would be plenty for a 3 year old with trimmings. Do a vege friendly stuffing - sage and onion.

Make it look special through how you present your table - don't buy things, use what you already have in the house. Also, serve everything in dishes for people to help themselves, then it looks like more than a regular meal.

No starter, lots of roast potatoes!

Make things from scratch rather than buying ready made, with the exception of fruit based things like Christmas pudding, cake and mince pies which are cheaper ready made.

Make the day special through games/time together. Like cheap sweets/chocs for pass the parcel, or treasure hunt.

There is such a lot of pressure on families to spend at this time of year. You will have a lovely day.

Roast chicken is so much tastier than turkey anyway, IMO! You can make it festive for not much extra by making or buying cranberry sauce (if you like it) or an orange sauce (caramelise juice from a couple of oranges, and some curls of peel, with some sugar). Extra sides of veg make it much more of a celebratory meal and don't add that much to the cost. Kinky's ideas about veggie pigs in blankets sound great!

I agree with making it look special rather than spend extra on a fancy roast! Fancy up the table a bit with placecards made from baubles with the names on gifttags (or just the tags) & a couple of candles (I got some battery ones last year from 99p shop because one or other of my kids would be guaranteed to knock them over)

Give the kids something special to drink, my oldest is now convinced the sparkling flavoured water from tesco that's about 34p is wine for her .

Serve up individual dishes for people to help themselves, or plate up the meat (or non meat) part of the meal & let them help themselves to anything else.

My kids have one main present each & a stocking full of random bits. We couldn't afford loads so have stuffed stockings to bursting through the year with little bits.

Get them to leave a mince pie or biccy out for santa with a carrott for rudolph & after they're in bed sprinkle a bit of 'magic' glitter where santa would have sat to eat his mince pie

Oh, and I think the treasure hint idea is fab, would do it myself with the chocolate santa's but we have mice and I'm not sure they'd survive the night

Thanks everyone. I'm going to do a roast. The person coming for dinner is my broke best friend who is lodging with us so she can't bring anything, only contribute to making dinner.

The treasure hunt idea is in place as it's DP's parents tradition.

I'm going to buy nice cheap wine glasses and a table runner to match the decor and add tinsel and tea lights around the room.

It'll be lovely whatever you do, Christmas doesn't have to be about spending a small fortune on one day, it's nice just to spend time with friends/family without the pressure of a normal day sometimes

Try wilko's for the wine glasses and table runner if there's one near you, they're usually quite reasonably priced for stuff like that

Auntie Bessie does Vege toad in the hole in Sainsbury's freezer section. Could work?

I've seen a gorgeous duck egg blue table runner there for £3! I'm off to buy it tomorrow. It'll go so well with the colour scheme in the dining room.

I'll look in to the aunt bessie toad in the hole. I hope DD will eat it. She's not a vegetarian because she's chosen it, she's 3 and just hates meat so I hope it'll disguise it enough and the texture won't be as bad.

the other thing that I buy and dont make at home is bread sauce. to me it is absolutely essential to have on christmas day (and in fact whenever else I eat chicken!). Put some extra herbs and half a lemon inside the chicken. Make your stuffing from a packet (get it ready earlier in the day so you are not in rush) and make it into small balls. Just pop it in the oven around the time you take your chicken out to rest (about 15 minutes) and they should be fine. So if you have chicken, cranberry sauce, roast tatties, sprouts (obviously!), pigs in blankets (or just normal sausages!) etc you should be fine. If there is a Lidl near you they do great smoked salmon at about £2.50 and there's definitely enough for 3 people as a starter (only if you want to do one, or hand round some value peanuts or similar beforehand if you want to make it special/different).

I agree that making the table look special and presenting your food nicely is the main thing (as well as being together of course!).

oh and PS what we do is have our christmas meal in the evening. somehow it's more festive when it is getting dark outside and we have the fire on and tealights and christmas tree lights on! We have a late breakfast and then we're pretty hungry for our meal by the time we eat (about 5.30 or so). Then you dont have to think about what to have for tea! apart from the odd or chocolate or so....

You don't need to spend a small fortune on food, chicken is nicer than turkey in my opinion anyway, do loads of roasties, why not make a sponge cake and decorate it yourself oooo i know i used to love it when my mum made nuns boobies aka christmas puds. You will need mashed up digestive buiscuits, (however you spell it) just cheap ones you will do, cheap chocolate and a few egg boxes. Line the egg boxes with clingfilm and melt the chocolate, add the mashed up digestives and mix together. Spoon the mix into the egg holes (for lack of a better term) and stick in the fridge. Once set turn out and decorate with a little white choc so they look like mini xmas puds. They are awesome and your dd will thankyou more for them than any pile of pressie :) xx

Sainsburys do Basics chocolate bars for 35p - all types. Bargainous!

waitingforchristmas, I like the sound of 'nuns boobies' My dd will enjoy doing that over the weekend for something cheap and easy to do! Thank-you

I'd check out charity shop for pretty glasses etc. and ask your friend to help with preparations - food costs less when made from scratch, and can be fun with two to share the load. You're right that the tinies won't care about the cost of their presents! Hope you have a lovely Christmas.

Those nuns boobies sound fantastic. I'm going to make a big batch and put some in with my home made fudge as cheap presents for older family members! Everyone will live them as we don't like actual pud here :)

For sprouts I slice them and fry them for few mins with one or two cut up slices of bacon (can pick out before serving for vege dd, she will prob still like flavour); when they see them dcs say oh yummy I love sprouts, just hope they aren't put off when they have them @ christmas lunch @ school.

I refused meat from weaning onwards, as I got older I found that red meat particularly really upset my stomach, even ended up in hospital with appendicitis type cramps after eating it for a term at uni. Processed food (junk) was easier to digest than real meat.

nuns boobies sound great for dd1 who hates all fruit incl raisins, but likes choc. Might need to rebrand for fil who wouldn't get the joke.

I'll tell my mum her recipe was popular on here. Noone in my house likes real christmas pud and it's a fun simple thing to do with your children. It's one of the things i remember most about christmas was helping my mum make those and then of course eating them. Of course when we little they were referred to as christmas puds ;) although i think nuns boobies is a much better name. That's a really good idea for the sprouts duracel when i cook xmas dinner i'll be trying that out.

Think I'll try that with the sprouts too, dd1 had her school xmas dinner yeaterday & came out with vrey specific insrtuctions not to give her any with Christmas dinner. She might like them that way though.

3duracellbunnies, you will have to tell your FIL the nun's boobies are Turnip Surprises.

Spouts cooked in institutions are actually brilliant weapons, projected form the back of a spoon,,,, but maybe you don't want to tell DD that either!

I have these budget tips to offer - sorry if they are blinkin' obvious to anybody!

1. Wrapping: If you have a piece of paper just a bit too small to wrap a square-ish present in, it sometimes works better if you put the item at a 45 degree angle (ie diamond shaped against the square of paper) and then fold the 4 corners in to meet in the middle. You need more sellotape but it ekes out the paper.

1. Christmas dinner: Don't have a proper starter, have crisps and dips. You can make the dips by judiciously mixing mayonnaise, yoghurt, ketchup etc, in little dishes. This will buy you time to get everything for the main course to the table once everyone is sitting at it (a constant challenge in our house...)

1. You only need 2 meals on Christmas Day if you time them right. The first is Quality Street at about 10am, then dinner just after the Queen's Speech. (if kids are small they might need some cereal after the Quality Street I suppose?!)

Forgot to say with the sprouts you can add chestnuts if you want it to be even more festive. They do taste completly different.