Squeezing everyone in for Xmas dinner

[DameEnidsOrange]

The poncetastics who have a dining table for 20 beautifully laid out wont be able to contribute, but for those with small houses, please tell me how you fit everyone in.

We have a 99 dining room and a 1113 living room with awkward chunks out for fire and cupboard.

Looks like I'm hosting 10 adults, 2 teens and 4 children on the big day.

We have a diddy round table that seats 4 and can borrow extra chairs and clean up garden table (also seats 4). What else can we do?

Borrow a bigger table?

Do 'sittings'?

Do a buffet?

Clear out any furniture possible. Cd/DVD racks can be put in the bedroom. Small cabinets might fit in the hall.

Can you swap the furniture round to make the larger room the dining room for the day. Even if you can just swap the couches and tables round.

Can you borrow another garden table. Two rectangular tables together should squeese in twelve and the children could sit at the round table.

Last year I had 3 people sitting at the computer desk eating their dinner! Obviously in the same room as the dining table, lol! My friend had 28 to dinner once and she had 3 people sitting on the sofa using an ironing board as their table. Could you borrow a kiddie size picnic table or similar off of anyone for the kids to sit round.

I've never hosted that many, but I think I would do a buffet myself.

Can you buy one of those fold up trestle tables like this? MIL has one and we've got 8 around it - 3 down each side and 1 at each end. There's not a great deal of room for serving dishes on the table, but we've managed!

Brilliant ideas, thank you all very much. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed at cooking for so many people but then thought about the logistics of it all.

When people are suggesting buffet, do you mean not doing a traditional Xmas dinner or do you mean leaving serving dishes on side on kitchen to save room on table?

We had everything laid out in the kitchen, me and DH sat nearest the door to go and get stuff for people. We passed around the dishes and then returned them to the kitchen. We had 12 three years ago, I had the extension on the dining table and two tables out of the garden, all the garden chairs and my sil bought some chairs with her so we had enough seats for all, we all squidged in and it was fun and jolly. My MiL was in charge of sauces, SiL in charge of desserts, single BiL was in charge of cheese and crackers. The kids were all squidged in.

MiL is from the poncetastic line of things and has a huge dining table that fits us all around with room. SiL and single BiL have big open plan houses, even if they don't have the matching furniture they do have the space to set it out beautifully. Our house is small and it's tight spaced and we are stepping on each others toes, but it's fun.

This year is MiL's turn and she has decided to sit out in the kitchen with the little ones this year.

My parents do the cold left over buffet lunch to tea munchings on boxing day.

I would do a buffet tbh.

We did it last year and it was great.

We had a large ham, roast beef, chicken and a whole salmon, a cheeseboard, breads, chutney, salady stuff, a seafood rice dish and all sorts of other stuff.

We had about 30 to ours and didn't want to cram everyone onto a table or do sittings. We just had a roast a different day.

We used to have a plank of wood set over 3 chairs which meant we could get 6 bums on it and the children all sat at a little table in the same room.

Great fun, unless one in the middle need the toilet or a middle bum had too much wine and forgot they didn't have a back to their chair.

MIL has 18 of us to xmas dinner every year and we all fit round her normal dining table over which is a massive wooden (maybe MDF?) 'table top' my DP fashioned her. Her table normally seats 8. We use all the chairs down one side and some benches down the other.