Countdown to 2016 - a whole extra day to wait.

[AbbyCadabby]

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[santa]

I saw that The Times has launched its Christmas Carol competition.

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Christmas Carol competition eh?

Wanders off whistling Fairytale of New York..........

Is the m and s food worth it? We've eaten out the past few years for Xmas dinner. But my 3 year old dd is definitely not in the the mood for sitting still at the moment. I'm debating getting m and s food for ease this year!!

God yes. I found m&s meat a life saver

Oooooh thanks chips, I might get all my prepped veg from there. To be fair, I get meat from butchers so no probs with that. :)

Just went through the shopping channels, there's 12 days of Christmas crafting on right now for those that need their fix.

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We have 'done' 200 days!

Ratbagcatbag - we did M&S 3 bird roast a few years ago. Was so excited and had all the family round. Bloody thing cost a fortune and was disgusting! Dry and overpowered by some sort of (non-optional) glaze (apricot I think). I was quite disappointed. Also didn't serve as many people as they estimated ( or maybe we just eat big portions!) but certainly not enough for leftovers - not that we would have wanted to eat any more of it anyway!

Oh bugger babynugget. That sounds so disappointing.

Meat we will order from butchers (lamb and chicken generally). I like the idea of prepped veg and starters/accompaniments and deserts though.

Anyone know when the ordering slots open for m and s Xmas food?

Not till around november usually

November :) I just get the 'basic' package with a few extra party bits. They were really really tasty but I think my roasties/veg are better so I think I will just go for the meats and cheeses plus puds this year, (I make my own christmas cake though!)

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I cook everything myself except Yorkshire Puddings (they sometimes work for me, but often they don't. I don't need the stress, but my DS loves Yorkshires)
Last year I bought a delicious Linda Mc Festive Bake
And flakey pastry - I'm fine to make shortcrust but not flakey.
Braised red cabbage (I need to find a recipe and cook this myself, it's a prepare ahead dish)

Last year, I bought some (reduced - bargain ) chopped steak in Sainsburys and froze it until I needed it to make steak pie.
Bought fish and froze it then coated in flour/eggs/breadcrumbs for Christmas Eve.
My DDad is famously fond of a bargain so he was delighted at my food finds

All the veg gets prepared on Christmas Day while I watch Eastenders, very theraputic. No shop bought roast potatoes can hold a candle to home cooked ones, they're all flabby or they have the batter coating .

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I cook everything myself but I prepare and freeze as much as I can beforehand. During December (before the school's break up) I'll spend a couple of mornings prepping and freezing most of the veg we use. I'll serve sprouts with pancetta (part cook the sprouts and freeze) honey roast carrots and parsnips (peel, cut into chunks and parboil then freeze) and I make sausage meat stuffing and freeze that too. I buy pigs in blankets - life is too short to spend time wrapping bacon round chipolatas.

I make our Christmas cake and puddings in September/October.

On Christmas Eve I'll cook the ham after church and then on Christmas Day itself all I have to do is lock myself in the kitchen with a bottle of wine cook the turkey (crown) and make gravy and roasties. Everything else just needs finishing off. We eat at some point between it going dark and Dr. Who so there is no pressure to have it all on the table for 1pm. I make dinner for my NDN who lives by herself but she refuses to come in and eat with us, so DD1 usually takes it to her just before we sit down.

I use disposable foil trays inside my normal roasting trays for convenience.

hello xmas countdown thread! I love this thread so I thought i'd jump aboard (was here very briefly under another username ages ago, so I've made a username just for this thread!). This is where I come when I need a bit of a boost as I love reading all your preparations and I'm looking forward to the day where I can do a similar amount of prep (or at least in the same ball park).

My house is a mess/not sorted for three reasons:
1.) It's only partly renovated
2.) Lots of my stuff is in boxes
3.) I have an amazing baby!!!!!!! (she is amazing)

so my scope for prepping Christmas is limited, which I don't mind too much as she'll still be too young to get it this year, although she'll probably like some twinkly fairy lights (now, where the hell are they packed?! haha).

However.
I have been coming across baby/toddler xmas jumpers in the free/charity shop clothes places I know. I've got 2 so far and another 2 I need to go back and get this week. What DD doesn't wear, her teddies can wear ;-) [how do you put the xmas hat on the emoticons please?]

I have also bought at least one present for all my nieces and nephews (unmissable bargain, too skint to miss unmissable bargains!). I need to think about what xmas should be this year and where I should spend it (single, so less reason to be at home on the day). I think it probably makes more sense to be at one of my siblings this year.

I'm thinking that I should just put effort into sorting the house so it's nicer for xmas, I have no plans to put up my two massive boxes of decorations this time. I think my main xmas celebration will be visiting my friend (who just happens to live near a massive shop that gets loads of xmas stock ;-))

Must go, house is more of a tip than normal!

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Woolley we have the After Dark/Before Dr Who timeframe too

christmasid you are partly excused from The All Out Christmas Madness as you have a baby and stuff in boxes .
But if your baby will be mobile by Christmas, you might not want too many decorations that sje can grab hold of (we didn't have a proper tree for years, one of the Fibre Optics was safer)

YY to looking now - actually, I took some clothes to the Charity Shop last week, including a Christmas Jumper with the tags on that I bought for DS and he won't wear - he's a teenage humbug.
But someone will get a bargain.

Pre Christmas is good for a declutter too, get a load of stuff out and have lots of space to decorate.

BTW - Christmas Smileys [ f grin ] (without any spaces)

I'm still decluttering. Was really on it but have fallen off the wagon in recent weeks.
I've however, booked to sell at a baby and child sale on the 1st October. So my plan is to remove toys that are no longer played with, bag up more clothes that don't fit and sort out the stair gates coming down. My plan is to sell enough to make a dent in some of Dd's Xmas present spends.

oh wow, would I love a stall at a baby and child thing once I've completed my family! They have had one round here once, but not sure it's a regular thing.

bold 70 bold thank you for the welcome x I'm definitely the kind of person that would rather have no decorations so that I can do without the stress of having to stop a baby trying to get them. It's her house, i'm just the housekeeper! :-) I've missed the boat today to try and get those other kids xmas jumpers, will have to try next week......am I the only parent that finds getting out in the afternoon so much easier than getting out in the morning?! But then, I didn't get to bed til 4am......

will practise xmas smiley.... [f grin]

practising again

161 [ffootball], I doubt you can have an xmas football but thought i'd give it a shot

how do you do the xmas tree?

My Christmas tree is on my emojis on my iPhone rather than one on mumsnet if that makes sense? 🎄🎄

Hi all!! Oh how I love this thread & this section of MN

Without putting a downer on anything, this Christmas may be slightly different than we imagined, we are having crushing fertility issues and it looks like baby number 2 will never be (This seems to upset me more when I think of future Christmases) So i'm going to ensure that this is the best one yet and DD (she'll be 7) has the most magical time. So much so, that i've quit work to be around more (self employed, still have other work on, just got rid of the most demanding job)

Anyway, just had the house completely redecorated, next week will be spent sorting things out for a car boot sale, plus organising all my drawers etc so one great thing is that the house will be perfect for Christmas!

Planning on eating out again for Christmas dinner, but I want to host at some point this Christmas due to the house being done.

Hello everyone. I haven't been on MN for ages as work/life has been super busy. But the news and the state of our world is so depressing at the moment that I could hear the MN Christmas boards calling me in. Desperate for some (festive or any kind of) cheer at the moment!

I have spent the last few weeks having a massive whole-house declutter which I try to do once a year but failed last year so it was badly needed. I finished today by going through all the Christmas decorations/books/DVDs. We have a ridiculous amount of Christmas crap. I must try and remember that in October/November time when am let loose in the John Lewis Christmas department...

I may go and watch some American Christmas shenanigans on YouTube for a while to avoid the news...

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Goodnight all and I'll be back on to share in the Christmas cheer tomorrow

I bought some Christmassy socks for my DD , to go in her Christmas Eve Hamper.

Just have to find somewhere to hide my Festive Bargains (usually a bag in my wardrobe, the bag gets bigger over the months)