Tips to make Christmas dinner a bit special?

[MisselthwaiteManor]

Do you have any tips/recipes to liven up the Christmas dinner and make it more than just another roast?

How about trying a different meat? The last two Christmases we have had goose for Christmas dinner and cooked a small turkey crown to have in sandwiches and Boxing Day lunch. There's a gorgeous Gordon Ramsay recipe involving lemons, limes and Chinese Five Spice which tastes much more Christmassy than it sounds.

We usually have it with roast potatoes (coated in semolina and roasted in goose fat), sprouts with pancetta and chestnuts, red cabbage cooked in mulled wine, maple parsnips and Nigella's gingerbread stuffing.

I cook a turkey crown stuffed with sage and onion, bacon and sausagemeat mixture, I baste it regularly throughout cooking with butter, and lay strips of streaky bacon along the top, it comes out deliciously moist.

A small roasted gammon joint.
Roast potatoes (cooked in goose fat) spirnkled lightly with rosemary.
Honeyed parsnips.
Steamed carrots
Petit pois peas.
Sausage meat balls.
Sprouts cooked with bacon lardons and a bit of butter.
Yorkshire puddings.
Cranberry sauce
Gravy
Stuffing balls.

There is always loads left over, and we have a 'Christmas tea' that evening, the turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce sandwiches are almost my favourite part! I put out pickled onions and gherkins, cold sliced gammon and turkey, the cranberry sauce and left over stuffing and loads of buttered bread and we all help ourselves and then watch a Christmas movie.