If you are hosting christmas how much has your food and drink cost ?

[cultmaskid]

And how many people

I have been trying to work it out. Difficult as I've been getting bits over the last 2 months and freezing. We will have 11 people. 7 for a week, 4 extra for 4 days. I usually spend about £60-80 a week for 5 of us.

Booze and soft drinks (which includes contribution at 2 open house parties) I've spent £100.

Breakfasts including smoked salmon for Christmas Day £25.

The rest of the food includes meat £120 (butchers turkey is £60). Veg, salad and fruit £40. Trimmings £20. Hams £20.

Plus cold meats (£10), nibbles (£££££), canape ingredients (£20). Cheese board is expensive (£60).

Puddings come in at £40.

Which shockingly is close to £500

It is for a week though!

Well my 2.5kg lamb cost me £3, reckon I've spent about £20 on party food and have everything else I need already (in catering). A bit of booze (already well stocked) and will be under £50 for 4 of us, and still an excellent meal! If I was going to be spending upwards of £1k I'd rather put it towards a holiday!

I feel really bad now we don’t contribute other than providing crackers

@Titsywoo
Embarrassingly not - before I was pg I could easily do 2 bottles and inly be tipsy (we start about 11am and go on into the early hours so it is over a long time) and my Dad and DH can easily do 2 each plus a fair quantity of spirits and not be very hungover.
Having a baby has probably been very good for my liver!

I am catering for -
12 on the 21st (six adults six kids)
Buffet for 25ish Christmas Eve which will definitely include drinks for allcomers, mostly alcohol drinkers.
We have an extra 9 for Christmas day which means 13 in total, only two are kids, there will be a full turkey dinner and later buffet etc.
Then hosting an extra five house guests until the 27th.

Shopping is all done and ordered, there was a £160 alcohol order, £114 in one food shop, £46 in another, and there is another dropping on Boxing Day which is £82 but will include normal family shopping from 28th-1st Jan

I’m not sure I’ll thank you for making me add that up but the total is £402. Blimey

This thread makes me feel so much better. I always recoil in horror when I tot up what the food and drink has cost for Christmas Day. Turns out, it's pretty normal!

I don't know how it costs so much, it just does!

Just heard on channel 4 that we spend £800million on confectionary over Christmas

I can spend money on shite with the best of them but even I’m at some of these numbers

Surely those spending £1,000+ are buying more than just food and drink, ie stuff you’ll use again like glasses etc

It’s a big roast dinner - WTF costs a grand!

You could literally have a family holiday with that kind of money!

What on Earth at the £1600 people serving their guests?

I recon it’ll cost about £200 on top of my normal shop for 12 people but I don’t drink at all and the rest aren’t big drinkers.

I'm hosting for ten on xmas day
Party for around 15 adults and 25 kids on xmas eve.
Usually we do a big food/booze shop which comes in around £800
This year I've done bits as I've gone along and we've hardly noticed it still got to wine and fresh stuff but that's it.

My usual £40-50 weekly shop has cost £74 to include Christmas Day and extra snacks and treats for the week. Only myself, my daughter and the dog.

Meant to say that’s because we have no family, other than my parents who posted a gift.

I thought we were pretty extravagant but our spend is nowhere near some of these!

Smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels for breakfast

£20

Rib of beef £85
Veg not sure but can’t imagine it’s more than £10
We have scallops to start, which we’ll do with pea purée and black pudding... £20 ish.
Dessert ordered from M&S £20

Approx £135

I’ve bought 3 bottles of cava, 6 bottles of white and 6 bottles of red... £120

Bottle of gin £20

Cheeseboard/crackers/grapes for Christmas night £100

So approx £400. We don’t really buy any sweets/chocolate etc, and go to my dad on Boxing Day.

I think we have to be careful to remember that being able to spend without thinking too much is a huge privilege. Normalising huge amounts spent on entertaining and indulgence can be quite hard on those struggling at this time of year. If we can put food on our table and are surrounded by people we love then we’re pretty fortunate. Adding the price of every Jeroboam doesn’t help anyone.
Christmas is about giving not spending. It’s about the sharing not what is shared.

Never heard so much nonsense in my life. It's one fucking day. How the hell do you spend £100 per head for a day?!!!

Turkey crown feeds 16 - £25
Multiple veg feeds 16- £10
Spuds - £5
Big chocolate traybake - £10
Cheese- £10
Booze - (25% off in run up to Xmas) 2 Bottles per head £128
Bottle Jamesons, cream and coffee - £30
8 bags kettle chips £8

Job done for 16 people - approx £250

Last year I hosted 14 for Christmas Day (dinner, drinks and snacks in the evening), 9 for Boxing Day (dinner, drinks and nibbles) and 7 on the 27th for dinner, drinks and snacks.

Mostly adults with a couple of older teens.

Everyone drinking over the 3 days, but sensibly (bar 2, who abstained, and the teens who were only allow allowed 1-2 ciders max).
I also hosted on the 29th and 30th, but they were more of a buffet style spread, one with drinking alcohol and one without alcohol.

I had a free range goose (~6-7kg), a free range turkey (7kg), free range pork joint (~3.5kg), a rib of beef (~2.5kg) and a 5.5kg gammon joint.

The 2 birds and the beef that I bought, I managed to get at a greatly reduced price (yellow stickered, so to speak, and then frozen til needed).

Drinks were bought on offers over a few months, veg was from the supermarket and prepped the day before each meal, I made my own stuffings (3 types), Yorkshire puds and pigs in blankets, and made my own gravy from the meat juices.

The meats alone lasted us over 3 weeks if you include the fact that I made soups/stews from the various bones, etc, leftover from each bird/joint.

My total spend for the meats, veg, puds, Christmas cake, snacks, chocs, nibbles, drinks, etc, was max£200. The veg lasted about 10 days and were were left with some snacks we hadn't even opened.

Broken down, the meats came to around £65, which was a fantastic bargain especially with the quality; the veg came to around £25, puds/cakes were homemade and would've come in at around £10, snacks and booze made up the rest.

Again, without compromising on taste, I got a lot of bargains by shopping around and using Aldi and Lidl.

This year I'm planning on costing for everything, from gifts to food and drink as I'm really interested to know what we spend in total over Christmas and New Year. I'd like to see where we can possibly make savings as it feels so wasteful.

The costing given above also includes all other meals/snacks over that period (ie, breakfast). On Christmas Day we have smoked salmon and bagels for 4, Boxing Day is Eggs Benedict and then homemade pancakes for New Year's Day breakfast (all catering for just 4 ppl). All other breakfasts are just standard from our cupboard stocks.

I feel like I'm on a different planet to the rest of you.

It will be £12 for a turkey and £6 for a duck.

Veg from farm shop, £5 for a sack of Maris piper and less than £5 for parsnips, carrots, sprouts and whatever else I pick up.

Assorted sundries like oil for roasties, nice bread for soup, butter, cranberry sauce, cream, gravy will prob be around £10.

Stuffing and pigs in blankets, cheese wrapped bacon around £6

Starter is lentil soup, buying from butchers this year instead of home made so will be £5.50 for 4 tubs.

Dessert will be gateaux from local baker at £7, possibly a Banoffi pie too which will cost around £5 to make.

Very little alcohol, around £10 and the same in soft drinks.

Around £80, there will be loads leftover too.

I’m genuinely at the amount of money some spend on food and alcohol during Christmas. Now I understand why people complain it’s so expensive!

Crikey the cost of Xmas in some households is shocking

We feed five adults and a nealry adult

Xmas eve brekkie and nice dippy tea
Xmas day brekkie and beef Wellington roast with all the trimmings plus a couple of different desserts
A tub of nice chocolate,a tub of sweets,crackers,nice cheese selection,non alcoholic and some alcoholic drinks plus a normal weeks worth of the usual toiletries dog food laundry stuff and some nibble food with dips and I spend no more than around £200.

I don't over buy as it gets thrown away or we stuff too much and feel rubbish.

A friend of mine splashed out around £2000 on the best meat sides and everything else to go with and then complains about how much Xmas cost for months afterwards

I'm pretty sure her guests don't expect that level of food

Wowee - $200 per head? What do you buy that costs that much?

For us it is a roast lamb or pork with cheesy cauli, broccoli, carrots, pumpkin, potato, some snacks like chips on the table, fruit and xmas pudding for dessert with custard/ice cream etc. Not much is spent on alcohol to be fair but even if we did drink we couldn't get near the $200 per head cost.

We are responsible for breaky this year (at MIL's for the day) and are doing smoked salmon, avocado, scrambled eggs with cheese and cookies and cream flavoured milk. All up it will cost us roughly $50 for breakfast for 10 - 6 adults and 4 kids.

I'm so shocked that some people spend around £100 per head!

This year there will be 9 of us for dinner and we will probably spend around £160 for Xmas eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day food. It always lasts longer than 3 days.

£160 would provide us with breakfast for all 3 days, home made buffet type food on Christmas Eve, Christmas dinner with all fresh veg, puddings, treats for the evening and then food for Boxing Day also. I always buy chocolates, biscuits and snacks in. I actually find the food we buy at Christmas overwhelming sometimes.

We save money as we're not keen on turkey so usually get two chickens and a ham for Christmas Day and everyone buys their own alcohol so that does save a big chunk off the total cost. I buy some alcohol for Christmas Day and some Irish cream for everyone but we all like different drinks and my family don't expect me to provide alcohol for everyone.

I suppose everyone has different expectations at Christmas!

More ethically produced meat isn't cheap and it shouldn't be.
Eating cheap food in general isn't a meritorious thing to do, it may be necessary but even veg that is grown with minimal pesticides will cost more than veg sprayed with everything.
If we want farmers, fruit and veg pickers and shop staff to have decent wages we have to pay an adequate amount for our food.
Which I know makes me sound horrifically sanctimonious but cheap food isn't a good thing really in the long run.

I think if you buy in pre made party food, side dishes and snacks then that's what pushes your shopping bill up. If you cook it all from scratch then you can significantly reduce the cost. If you're hosting then it's economical to buy the larger catering packs from Costco or wholesalers like jj food services

Also be aware of reducing food waste and saving money & don't buy loads only to throw it away.