I'm hosting my first official Christmas Eve/Xmad meal. What have I done?!

[MultipleMama]

As DH and I now own our own official house my dad has past the ritual down to me; the traditional Russian 12 course meal... and today I was informed my Grandparents, great Grandpa, 3 uncles, 1 great uncle, 2 aunts and 3 cousins are flying over too. They've never flown over for before! And to that; Christmas day when DH's family will be coming for dinner.

How am I going to fit all these people in my house?! And I've never cooked for that many people either. Think I'm going to hide away until New Year's!

Oh and I'll roughly 34/35 weeks pregnant at Xmas.

Any tips/advice on organising and preparing and how to sort this mess would be so much appreciated!

At almost full term, there is no way I'd be hosting anyone to be honest.

Open your kitchen to your parents and let them cook. I had an easy pregnancy (until pre - eclampsia at 40 weeks) and a small bump but couldn't have slaved away over a hot stove at 35 weeks, let alone cook a 12 course meal.

Oh God, all I can say Is good luck!

Sorry that wasn't much help. Anyway you can rope others into helping ? or taking over the whole thing

Agree with pp. You are hosting, but don't do the cooking. If you feel pressure into it, say that your midwife/dr/Gyn has forbidden it due to the late stages of your pregnancy.

Or scale down massively to 3 course of Christmas eve and 3 course on Christmas day. Can your IL do the majority of the cooking for xmas day? What about your DH?

Where will all this family be staying? How big is your house?
Will you have to finance it all?
In an ideal world I would say to everyone to bring a dish but if travellin they won't be able to so I would say everyone contribute £x and divide tasks up for the day, if that's not possible I would buy everything in then have contractions on the morning needing a trip to hospital aka pub for a quiet orange juice leaving them to it, swanning back in after 'false alarm' just as dinner is served ;-)

I think I would be furious with my Dad!

There is no way you can be expected to do all of that so late in pregnancy.

Option 1 - just say no.

Option 2 - as LokiBear suggested - let your parents take over your kitchen

Option 3 - you will host but everyone brings a dish or course

Option 4 - order in!

Option 5 - have your baby early!

I did a four day Christmas for 19 at 35weeks - then was exhausted for the final 4 weeks till I had a planned section. Its doable if you can delegate and prepare some stuff in advance

I did a lot of prepare and freeze, wrote extensive lists, delegated (some) big tidying duties, simplified over the grandeur I'd normally go for.

I.e. Breakfast was a cold selection of help yourself cereals, toast, pain o chocolat and croissants plus a big ham and smoked salmon. I did have bacon and sausages in with the offer people could cook their own.

Boxing day I did big preprepared curries, xmas eve i did steak, wedges and salad with various jugs of steak sauce.

DH thankfully knows how to use an oven and prep stuff so he says he'll do all the prep work. I'm seriously thinking of renting out a function room and just serving a bloody buffet for Xmas dinner.

However, Xmas eve is a little more special and my dad said he'll also help with the prep along with my brothers (we used to prep for dad) but I'd be the one creating/cooking dishes. I'm determined to prove to my Grandmother that desite being raised in England and marrying a German, I still have a good dose of Russian me

I'm just miffed about where to sit everyone. And how to cook so much food with one oven...

DH said I should make in advance and freeze them till Xmas.. so tempting! Haha.

Borrow slow cookers to cook joints if meat etc in
Try and balance stuff that can be served cold with stuff that need oven. If it's 12 course try an have a course that canbe served cold then a hot one as when tats out the oven the next hot course can be put in and so on

Only my dad, and 3 brothers are staying with us. My crazy BiL is letting my Grandparents, GGrandpa say with me and rest are staying a hotel.

I had the option to say no, but I want to do this. Just freaking out when thinking of what it's involved.

House is not that big, we turned our diningroom into a playroom so only have the breakfast room.

Good suggestion for others to bring a dish - will suggest that for Xmas day. Xmas eve (evening meal as we need to do well wishes at dusk) - haven't decided yet. I may have to call my Grandmother for advice and tips!

Ooo good tip! Thanks, Brie. :)

traditional twelve courses?. Is this the sort of thing because if so looks doable.

Yes, exactly like that and that link is perfect! Thanks! That looks so much less complicated than what my dad told me! Phew.

I'm hosting for 24 people in total on Christmas eve and 31 people in total for Christmas day.

So for Christmas eve our 12 course will be;

1. Sochivo.
2. Malossol caviar/Seaweed caviar w/crackers.
3. Beetroot and apple soup w/ cheese tear and share bread.
4. Mozzarella, mint and mango skewers
5. Peppers and mushrooms stuffed with Sauerkraut
6. Warm salmon/Seitan w/ salad
7. Coconut Ice w/raspberry sauce
8. Latkes
9. Roasted root Vegetables
10. Garlic Breadsticks w/ tomato relish
11. Fruit pie
12. Vzvar

For Christmas day;

1. Cheese fondue. 2)Traditional Roast Goose/Mushroom & squash wellington w/ vegetables (and because I want something of home; Yorkshire pudding).
2. Lebkuchen.

Talked to my family and they've happily agreed to help cook and prep food; as I need to make some meat options for those of my family who don't fast at Christmas.

Still haven't figured out how to fit them all in my house though...

Sounds well in control.

Have you worked out what can be prepared 1 month, 1 week, 1 day in advance etc?

I find eating the freezer contents in October/ November helps so that i have oodles of space for the Christmas food. I have also found that the fridge always ends up very full. At Christmas if you can borrow ice boxes from friends, the hard kind, and have freezer blocks (available in pound land etc) you can create extra fridge spaces for things like salad and milk. Drinks (wine, fruit juice, fizzy drinks) I keep on a shady table near the back door (so long as its not going to drop more than a degree or so below freezing and then I have to throw a couple of blankets over the top to stop it freezing). I also have hooks in the shed roof so i can hang bags of veg away from potential vermin when I have a house full.

We have a loft and declutter for Christmas. Theres a serious furniture shift to convert the house to an entertaining space. We pull all the seats into one room so as many as possible can sit at once. Removing some scatter cushions makes the seating area bigger if you're a cushion lover.

We clean off garden furniture and use it with big table cloths inside. With a heavily laden/ decorated table a white cotton flat sheet makes a good table cloth or basis for layering smaller more colourful tablecloths on top. We also historically have used floor boards, the big slot together kind, on top of our usual dining table to effectively treble the number who could sit at it. We recently brought 6 spare ikea dining chairs for £14 from a charity shop but have previously purchased from ebay for under £3 each pre Christmas and sold for the same or even a bit more post Christmas.

One other thing I find that helps is i put trays of glasses by the drinks and tell people to help themselves. I put obviously labeled tea, coffee with mugs etc away from my kitchen work triangle and encourage people to make their own.

I love big family gatherings. It is a faff and hard work but the memories of getting people together are well worth it. When i look back on my own childhood i can barely remember any special gift I received for Christmas but
I do remember lots of different big family get togethers. Time with elderly relatives no longer with us and time with cousins who lived far away.

Have a wonderful time - don't forget to get some big family photos.

I was about to say "get over yourself it's only a roast dinner with a microwaved hot pudding at the end" but then I saw the bit about the essential 12 course Russian blow out.

However it appears that you will have 5 (five) other adults staying in the house, none of whom will be heavily pg at the time. In those circumstances your responsibilities are restricted to a) doing an online food delivery order for the ingredients (leave 24 hours grace period if poss to allow for emergency runs to collect missing items) and b) sitting on sofa drinking Shloer, eating chocs and doing a little light napkin folding.

I don't think I could sit on sofa while everyone ran around cooking etc. I'm terrible at sitting still. Bed rest was horrible, I hated every minute of it. And two of my cousins are adults. So more helping hands :)

Thanks for the tips, MisFor!! Really helpful :) Our lounge is pretty big so we could rearrange that. We have spare chairs in the basement and an old dining table (we have an 8 seater picnic table in the breakfast room) which I could use somehow!