Making Christmas Day easier

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I thought it would be nice to share ideas on making Christmas Day easy & fun....

I set the table the day before & prepare the food the afternoon before...
Anyone else??

No, just add to hot fat straight from freezer (shake the bag first to make sure they separate, and stand back as the fat will spit!).

I first read about it in good housekeeping; I was skeptical as roasties are very important to me! But it is genius and saves a load of time and effort

We take anything we can out of the packaging and put batteries in or make them up then put them back in the boxes before wrapping, family tend to do it as well. We also charge up anything that needs it.
Get bin bags, extra batteries and scissors ready and lay the table the night before.
We have Christmas dinner at lunch time (we have a party in the afternoon) so I am all about getting things ready to just stick it in the oven and reducing kitchen time as much as possible! Everything is pre prepped an ready to go.
Basically I try and make sure that all the hard work is done on Christmas Eve rather than the day itself

And I'm stealing the roast potato idea! That's genius

Shoebox, wrapped in Christmas paper (lid wrapped separately), under the tree containing: Scissors, screwdriver, spare batteries, sellotape, spare bulbs for lights, a spare rubbish bag folded up etc. All ready and easy to find in case of emergencies.

I peel all veggies and potatoes on Christmas Eve. Potatoes are soaking in water in their pots on the stove. Carrots in batons in a plastic tub in water. Brussels sprouts and parsnips in separate tubs with no water.

DH makes the stuffing the day before, as it's a family special sausage meat one (that he has to ring his DM, without fail, every year to check the details of how to cook it).

Make sure all bins are emptied in the final collections before Christmas - whether they need it or not. (We pay by weight and per lift here, with landfill bin one week, and the recycling and composting bins both on the alternate week in every fortnight).

I fill the coal bucket on Christmas Eve. I used to set the fire ready to light in the morning, but last year, we lit the stove on Christmas Eve (DD watches The Santa Clause, so didn't seem concerned as Santa is able to make the fire go out in the movie - we reckon she has stopped believing a few years back but won't admit it to us!). But having the bucket full, and having emptied out the ashes on Christmas Eve, means it is fast to set up on Christmas Morning (we only need to empty ashes every few days mostly).

I also leave out our good outfits all ready to go, including my jewellery and makeup, ready to slap on in the morning after stockings and before rushing out to church. I also leave the kitchen ready as I go to bed on Christmas Eve, so that when DD drags us down at stupid o'clock, I can flick the switch on the kettle for a fast coffee to help bleary eyes while she shrieks with excitement!! And we leave a tin of jus-rol croissants in the fridge ready to roll out, with a tray on the counter, to get a fast but treat breakfast on the go. (Most years, I think I will squeeze orange and grapefruit juice fresh, but I am coming to the realization that I won't, and the past few years have also bought a bottle of fresh squeezed on Christmas Eve, which is very welcome!!).

We don't need to worry about setting table or huge preps as we are only 3 when we are at home, so setting the table after presents is no hassle. But I do need to remind myself to have a nice bottle of white wine in the fridge the day before.

Yy that roast potato idea is great. I'm going to do a batch today, in fact I plan to always keep a batch in the freezer for roastie emergencies!

Last year we got M&S Christmas dinner - no way was I cooking with a 12 day old DS2. It was really nice so I plan on doing the same this year. We also have dinner at about 4, which means I don't miss out on the kids opening presents (like MIL always seems to). Plus DS1 would be way to excited to sit down and eat a proper meal at lunch time, so we'll have a few bits out to keep everyone going til the main meal.

If you take toys out of boxes and put them together before wrapping, they look much bigger too :) And it means you can start doing this before the big day, spreading out the cardboard disposal instead of trying to ram it all in the bin on Boxing Day.

I have a big cardboard box at the ready for all the wrapping paper and rubbish. Last year DS1 had a great time playing basketball, throwing scrunched up paper in. Should have just got him that for Christmas!

The best thing we ever did was have the grand roast dinner on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day was for church, presents and lots of yummy leftovers. The cold turkey sandwiches are the best bit anyway.

I realise it might not float everyone's boat, but it was the most relaxed and cheerful Christmas we've had. The whole thing lasted twice as long and no-one was trying to do twelve things at once.

We have a big gathering at my PIL on Xmas day.
There is about 18 of us.
We split the work between us.
Mil does the nibbles and turkey.
We do the veg
Bil does the roasties and a dessert.

SIL does whatever else needs doing.
Works really well.
We all chip in to clear up.

Be ready for power cuts
We had a long power cut last year on Christmas Eve, when the power came back on we should have cooked the turkey as we had another long power cut on Christmas Day and ended up splitting into two groups and evacuating 1-2 hours away to impose ourselves on others!
This year WILL be better!

We are doing the m and s dinner too :) maybe more expensive but worth it for no stress.

Ooh, what is 'doing the M&S dinner'? I think we are just the 4 of us this year, and could stretch to it. :)

Bin are you near me? Not only was the power out but we were carless as I had to abandon it due to floods!

We're doing m&s this year too mmm

We don't go to family n don't have guests :)

Veg all done night before but hey it's a roast dinner with some extra bits so no different to a Sun cooking one for us.

Get all the veg prepped and oven ready on Christmas Eve. Everyone is involved here, it's part of the celebrations...drink and a peeler??

Then it really is just a question of oven on and stuff in and out on trays/in pans.

Cook the meat early, it will stay warm while it rests and it saves you juggling shelves. We usually have pork and a turkey crown, and last year after a last minute supermarket dash dh appeared with a large joint of beef and a fancy for beef sarnies on boxing day pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaasse So that was three giant bits of creature to get cooked!

All the booze is in the garden in a bucket of ice/water, people MUST help themselves or go thirsty. AND the fresh air and space is nice if you need a breather. ;)

My chiddlers are older teens thought now so they'll come and help with the dishwasher and stuff. But I do like cooking and kitchen faffery so it's never been a chore.

My parents always had a really bad and old but working gas cooker, with a can of gas, sitting in the back porch for power outages (there were quite a lot when we were very young). We seemed to get lucky on Christmas Day, but there were quite a few years when our line was ok but other lines local to us were out and we'd have 2 different turkeys in the electric and gas ovens in the morning for families visiting for drinks. We didn't eat until late evening anyway, so there was always time for ours to go in after the neighbours one in the main oven (or neighbours would be transferred to gas when other one was done).

Dad keeps threatening to BBQ the turkey one year. (Our cul de sac have a tradition of holding a neighbourhood BBQ the first snowy day that you could call yourself "snowed in" (i.e. 1 inch of snow covering the grass on the green) - pull out the 2-3 gas bbq's, grab whatever food is in the fridge/freezer, make hot wine for grownups and hot squash for kiddies, and stand around in the sunshine but cold passing the afternoon while the kids all run wild!! It's great fun!!

I'm definitely going to try out the frozen roast potatoes idea. Also the disposable roasting tins to cut down on the washing up.

Also make sure the dishwasher is totally empty so plates can go straight in when they're taken off the table. Have drinks and glasses somewhere other than in the kitchen so people aren't traipsing through the kitchen and getting in the way.

sib may spud daft but can you explain what you mean by 'open freeze' please?

I would like to do this as it would be a fab time save but need a trial run first!

Open freezing is when you put the tray of food straight into the freezer without any covering.

Once the veg/mince pies/whatever are frozen, you can then tip them into a bag for storage in the frezer (takes up less room usually).

But the spuds wouldn't be on a tray would they? So I'd drain them into the colander then arrange on a tray, leave to go cold then put that in freezer?
(Sorry if sounds silly Qs!)

Prep the veg on Christmas Eve while watching a movie.
Cook it all in the steamer the next day.
Pre-make the stuffing, cranberry sauce and freeze.

chewbacca yep, that's what you do. Drain, shakeup a bit and place on a baking tray and stick in the freezer.

Peel, chop and boil spuds as usual.

Drain; when dry arrange in single layer on large tray

Place in freezer, once frozen (prob by next day) place in freezer bag.

On the day, heat your tray and oil in oven, when ready take pots out of freezer and tip into hot fat. They'll need extra time but from here you roast them as usual (in hot oven).

I don't know why I don't do this for Sundays or mid-week roasties!

My freezer now contains frozen sprouts & parsnips (shop bought) and my frozen roasties. On the day I'll just have to peel carrots; everything else will be an open-bag-tip-in-pot job (having made bread sauce etc in advance too)

I use Foil roaster for turkey but pop it in large roasting tin, so have sturdiness of tin but no cleaning dish??

the biggest tip is just remember it doesn't have to be perfect

our most remembered Christmas ever was a power cut - sausage rolls and pickles and lots of biscuits for lunch. Followed by a game of candlelight bingo where my dad had photocopied THE SAME sun bingo card (posh eh!!) not realising we would ALL call house at the same time... It was 32 years ago and we still laugh about it now!

and as for lunch - it is just a roast dinner - who cares if you have bisto gravy, veg in bags in the microwave, paxo stuffing - sometimes what we know best, and do often, tastes better.

I also use the foil tray the turkey crown comes in (from M&S) inside a roasting tin - no cleaning.

I've never done the foil tray inside the roasting tim - top tip, definitely doing that one!

My mum used to do Xmas dinner in the evening of Xmas Eve. It had two benefits: stuffed us kids so we were tired and actually went to sleep, and secondly, there was just reheating and veg cooking to do on Xmas Day (Mum would prep all the veg together than then keep the ones for Xmas day in the fridge). We do slightly different as I have to incorporate DH's family traditions, but I still prep the veg on Xmas eve.