Evening Christmas dinner

[dancingdirty]

Does anyone have their Christmas dinner in the evening?
My DD may be working in the day now so was thinking we could eat later
So if you have a layer dinner what does your day look like?

When I was a child we had Christmas dinner in Christmas Eve for a few years. It made Christmas Day itself more relaxing and we had a “tea” instead with leftovers, Christmas cake, pigs in blankets etc. I quite enjoyed it as there was no one in the kitchen all day on Christmas Day and everyone seemed more present. You could maybe do that and have a Christmas tea after the shift ends?

We have a Christmas tradition that makes it so that we are not about during the day . We prepare all the vegetables the night before. Do what we do, and then by the time we have cooked the meal it is around 6 - 7 pm. We don't have starters or anything like that but we still make it nice.

I do like the christmas eve idea but we are all working at least a half day so not sure that would work

Just do everything after work! Although if there are no children I would say presents after dinner as it's a very time consuming meal to cook.

Could you maybe do a small Turkey in a slow cooker so it's ready when you are home and buy some posh m&s ready prepared veg and sides to minimise the effort.

I grew up with an evening Christmas meal and love it! Day was something like: fancy breakfast then presents. Get changed into comfy clothes, lounge about for a bit. Lunch was always posh bread, crackers, ham, cheese, sausage rolls, chutneys salad. Then out for a walk, followed by cup of tea and mince pies/Christmas cake (very important to not have too big a slice!). At around 6 o’clock start the process of getting dressed up. When everyone’s ready it’s champagne and small nibbles. Then turkey meal around 7-7.30 (no starter) followed by Christmas pudding, and then cheese and biscuits, with breaks as required. Plenty of wine and port throughout!

I’ve also done the cooking, and like it as you don’t have to be in and out the kitchen through the morning. The major disadvantage is the cleaning up ends up quite late in the day.

We do sometimes. We often have a 'starter' around normal lunchtime, and then the 'main' about 5/6pm. Then cheese/dessert around 7/8. We also have some mince pies or festive nibbles mid afternoon.

Yes we started doing this a few years ago so that I didn't feel like I was torn away from the kids really early to cook all day.

We cook the turkey on Christmas Eve night. We get up and have breakfast and presents. Play with new toys until in laws come for an hour mid morning. Have turkey and stuffing sandwiches for lunch. Go see my family in the afternoon, then come back and let the kids play with their new toys while we get the dinner ready for tea time.

It works really well for us and has really taken the stress out of it for me. It's a lovely, relaxed day.

Yes, in our house it is normally 6pm ish and would be later only that one person has a bit of travelling to do afterwards. It makes the day very relaxing.

We always had Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve evening when the children were small. It was the start of the holiday and the children went to bed with full tummies. Christmas Day was a buffet table to snack at as and when and visitors could tuck in as well. No stress about gathering excited children to a sit down meal when all they wanted to do was play!!

Always in the evening as I used to have to do evening stables so couldn’t have a drink until I got back.

Morning stables
Ride
Church
Light lunch
Meal prep
Evening stables
Dinner

Thanks all

Sounds like a few do it so I think we will just go with that

So will plan a lovely breakfast and think we can have our soup starter for lunch and dinner once she is home.

First time one of the teenagers has had to work the day so just Wasn't sure how it would pan out but you have all reassured me it will be fine

I've never had a Christmas lunch, growing up we always went for a walk then ate at 7ish. Now we visit family, play with kids and their toys then we eat at 5ish.

We normally eat around 4ish. So much nicer than lunchtime. Later again would be fine with me too. I once did Christmas lunch with one bit of family and made it back in the evening for the cheese course at later Christmas dinner eaters. Just as the idea of cheese had become a good one. That was a great day.

We’d do a breakfast of bacon rolls and then maybe some nibbles around lunch for grown ups (kids might get more depending on how much chocolate they’ve eaten). It’s nice to feel hungry for Christmas dinner, which I can never manage if it as 1pm.

We nearly always eat around 5 , we have mince pies using unwrapping, then a breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. Lunch time is usually nibbles and then dinner starts at 5 we never need any thing after that

We've had ours at around 5 pm for years - less of a rush for the cook(s) and plenty of time for a walk in the nearby park.

Late breakfast/brunch of bagels/smoked salmon/cream cheese, and some nice nibbles (usually fishy from M&S) around 2-3.

Will have very little ones with us this year, first time in decades, so they'll need breakfast and lunch at normal times, but the 5 pm dinner should still work.

Hardly anybody ever wants anything to eat after late dinner, but if they do there's cold turkey and gammon/mince pies, etc.

Always - although if we are "down home" (ie visiting DMIL and DPs), we end up having Christmas Lunch (turkey dinner) and Christmas Dinner (turkey dinner) to keep both happy.

When we stay "at home", in our own house, we always eat in the evening. Somewhere around 5-7pm - depending on when the bird is cooked and we are organized.

So up whenever DD wakes, open stocking, relaxed breakfast, tidy up, showers etc.

Out for mass - we usually aim for 10.30 as that's family mass (kids wandering everywhere, Priest invites them up to the altar etc). But occasionally it's been 12. (At home, its either "Midnight" (7pm) the night before, or 8.30am).

From there, we have just one call to do nowadays - it used to be 3 different sets of extended family to visit local to us for a drink, a mince pie and a chat. We used to call into home between visits 2 and 3 to get the turkey in the oven (it was on our route), as it meant we didn't have to rush that last one.

But home, get the oven hot (if we've forgotten to set the timer to heat it).
Get the bird into the oven. Throw in a sheet of M&S nibbly things at the same time.

1 person will get the rest of the kitchen vaguely organized. While the other lights the fire, turns on tree lights and Christmas music, opens the bottle of bubbles etc. DD wanders around, sometimes being useful.

Once nibbles cooked, bubbles open and order put to the chaos, we go into the sitting room with our snacks to open presents. This is a relaxed time, it may involve occasional breaks to check the bird or get the potatoes on etc.

We kind of potter around getting the rest of the meal organized, sitting down to chat, clearing up the wrapping paper, setting the table etc.

Then we eat.

Then we clear up, and fall on the sofa groaning. Maybe watch a movie or something, if anything catches our fancy, or else just relax and chat. And head to bed at a reasonable hour because we are hosting people next day (well, I usually strip the turkey and put the stock pot together but don't turn it on, and might get a few other bits started before bed - if I have the energy).

In terms of enough food during the day, breakfast involves bacon in some form (bacon butties, or pancakes with bacon, or scrambled eggs/omlette with fillings etc).

There are nibbles at the houses we visit. Mix of savoury and sweet.

And when we get home, in mid afternoon, we have a pack of M&S savoury hot "party food", and also put out crisps etc to graze on. Some years, if we are more hungry, we put out carrot sticks and any hummus leftover from Christmas Eve dinner (which is a kind of smorgasbord buffet platter thing that everyone picks to suit themselves).

Often, the M&S party food is enough to be the starters, and we just have main course, cheese and dessert for the actual meal at the table.

We often do a dinner as a lot of our family is medical so either working or are on call - we do presents in the morning with tea/coffee/milk, that keeps the kids going until a late good breakfast with eggs and things, then a light lunch and early dinner around 6. Like others, no entrees just the main meal and pudding then bath and bed. I find it nice as there's no mad rush, we also save a fair bit of money as we don't have the same amount of meat, snacks etc that we had with a lunch.

Learning from us though - it makes for a late night, so don't give a Christmas Eve box and let the DCs stay up too late the night before as well, or they will be feral by boxing day!

We always do. We don’t eat our main meal at lunch time on any other day so why Christmas Day? It started when SS’s mum sent him over on Christmas afternoon having not given him any Christmas dinner (and not telling us) 😵 I mean why would you do that to you’re child?? Que us hastily trying to put something together from the leftovers, poor kid.

I prefer it because if you eat at lunch time, it feels like Christmas is over by mid afternoon!

i am warming to the idea now having read all your comments.

I like idea of candle light and dinner too!
Quite excited now!!

Yes we always had our Christmas meal in the evening when I was growing up, we would go to Church, have the nieghbours round for drinks, light lunch, walk, presents in the afternoon & then the main meal at night.

We’ve since had different variations over the years that we’ve had our own home, last year our teenager also worked so we went back to eating in the evening.

Personally I just don’t like doing the same thing every year.

We always had ours in the evening too. My mum wanted to be with us in the morning rather than being stuck in the kitchen. So we would have breakfast and then a nice relaxed morning with gift opening and putting things together. Then we ate around five/six.

This year we are having our dinner on Christmas Eve by candlelight and then have an evening walk. Eventually we will stroll to midnight mass. Am really looking forward to it

I really like Funnyface1's routine with the turkey sandwiches for lunch then traditional dinner in the evening. I love Christmas dinner but it's a shame to have the whole day centred around it. We've always had a late ish dinner, around 5.30pm, for various reasons: we eat a French Christmas dinner on the 24th as well so never wake up starving on the 25th, when we were kids we wanted to play with toys and go out with bikes etc. all the time it was light, (and as we got older we wanted to sleep off our hangovers), but mostly because DM is terrible at timing anything.

Now it works well as our DC like to spend the day playing with their new toys and playing games with their aunts, uncles and GPs, then are usually quite tired after dinner and will fall asleep in front of a film, then the adults get some drinking/chatting/crap Christmas TV time.