NO Christmas lunch on Christmas Day!!!

[Staringatthetiles]

Has anyone ever done this and if so what was your alternative?

I don’t want to go into the reasons why but would love to hear if anyone opted out of cooking Christmas dinner especially any creative alternatives that will appeal to a family of 5 with 2 preteens.

I'm French, so I prefer Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. Partner used to do the whole big roast dinner (only half of which would get eaten), he's a good cook but uses every goddamn plate and pan in the kitchen and even manages to get food up the walls, he makes such a fucking mess...he also wanted to have it in the evening, not at lunch time. The final straw for me was the year we didn't get to eat until nearly 10pm and he burnt the skin of the turkey that had cost £25 (for two of us...and neither of us like turkey much anyway!). I told him no more roasts on Christmas Day.

Now we have a nice cold buffet on Christmas Eve evening, and then on Christmas Day he makes eggs benedict for brunch, and we repeat the cold buffet in the evening, perhaps adding some party food like small pies etc. Plenty of cheeses and biscuits, nice desserts. I don't see us ever going back to the 'traditional' meal.

When exh and I were together I would Cook from scratch for 12 people and be knackered by the time I sat down to eat it. His parents would turn up with his brother, girlfriend and the rest of them - always late - bringing one cheap bottle of wine. They would have drunk at least 2 bottles of our nice stuff before I got to have a drink!
When we split it was my first thought - an easier Christmas with just 4 of us. Now I but everything from M&S and enjoy the day!

I'm just here to be nosey....I'm starving now!

Once invited to family for Christmas & jumped at the chance to get away from the faff. Turned out they were having tacos that year! Chilli, chicken, Mexican rice, tortillas and so many dips! Honestly we loved it. Totally change, less fuss and cleaning up and we actually all just focussed on having a great time!

@GeorgiaGirl52

America here: Our big - cook until you drop - meal is Thanksgiving. ALL the traditions - turkey, ham, potatoes, dressing, corn, sprouts, beans, cranberry sauce sweet potatoes, yeast rolls all covered in gravy. Plus at least 3 pies: pumpkin. apple and mincemeat and 3 cakes' coconut, fruitcake, and chocolate. Christmas Eve - Chinese takeout Christmas Day - Hot cocoa and blueberry muffins when we get up A mid-afternoon buffet of finger foods (some brought by each family) and a punch bowl filled with our family's traditional nonalcoholic cranberry punch. People can chat and watch football and sing carols and graze whenever they feel like it.

That sounds absolutely amazing!!

Going for an Indian meal on Christmas Day evening this year
Previous years have done the same. I've also had pizza one year and McDonald's another year
Last year I had baked Camembert, breads, pickles and Parma ham

One of our family stories is about how we had boiled egg and soldiers for Christmas dinner one year when I was a child. My brothers and I usually forget to mention when retelling it that it was our choice because we were all suffering from a bug and couldn't actually face a full Christmas dinner!

@Confusedmeanderings

One of our family stories is about how we had boiled egg and soldiers for Christmas dinner one year when I was a child. My brothers and I usually forget to mention when retelling it that it was our choice because we were all suffering from a bug and couldn't actually face a full Christmas dinner!

One year I told the teachers at primary school that we had scraps I couldn't remember the name for canapés... mum was mortified and had to explain we always had a buffet from M&S in the evening of Christmas Day

That American thanksgiving and Christmas sounds wonderful. It really does.

We all ended up with flu one Xmas, thankfully improving by Xmas day, but everyone too exhausted to cook.

We all stayed in our pyjamas & ended up all getting into our big bed, with all of the trays in the house full of plates, cheeses, pickles, breads, crackers, nachos, bits of salads, olives, hummus, dips fruit, chocolates etc & grazed all day whilst watching Xmas tv. We all look back on it as a pretty great Xmas

Baked Potatoes with Coronation chicken. Massive roast on Christmas Eve though.

We were in a ski resort and it was a beautiful sunny, crisp day. We had oysters and a glass of wine from a stall, followed by chicken and chips at a local bar, eaten outside. It was glorious.

We've done the xmas afternoon buffet thing for family a few years too. We'd have a late good cooked breakfast, usually good kippers, eggs etc & then we lay out a buffet of pies on a warming tray, a crockpot full of hot gravy, roast potatoes & veg, plus cheese board with pickles, bread, hummus, salad, fresh fruit salad, mini sandwiches, fruit salad & Xmas cake. Everyone turned up at about 4 & just helped themselves to food as the night went on. We much preferred that to a big family roast dinner with MIL wanting to be sat at the dinner table at 11.45, us preferring 3 push & everything in between for the rest of the guests. We gave up on traditional Xmas pdq in favour of buffet & it was much less stressful

@lovablequalities

I wish this was me. I HATE Christmas dinner. I'm not fond of roasts at the best of times but I have zero desire to cook one when the kids are all up to high doh with presents and every other bugger has "expectations" and everything has to be hot. Every year I scratch my head at how to make it special +easy+enjoyable +stress free+traditional. Every year I fail and spend weeks dreading the fucking performance of it all. One thing I definitely got shot of was the total nonsense of eating in daylight. There's a limited amount of light I'm not wasting it eating when I could be out for a walk! Dinner at 5 earliest!

@lovablequalities In your ideal Christmas tell us what you would have and when if you totally could.

@Staringatthetiles

Has anyone ever done this and if so what was your alternative?

I don’t want to go into the reasons why but would love to hear if anyone opted out of cooking Christmas dinner especially any creative alternatives that will appeal to a family of 5 with 2 preteens.

My non-Christmas dinners are part of a themed day involving a country. I really plan these out so have games nights etc involving trivia questions, movies, and we try to dress up a bit too. We do eat a lot though lol.

Fajitas as part of an overall Mexican day. So we start with huevos rancheros and have some form of chilli con carne with saffron rice for lunch, then fajitas for dinner.

Lasagna, Garlic bread, huge salads as part of an Italian day - breakfast is a capuccino with home made amaretti biscuits, lunch is home made pizza.

Mac and Cheese as part of America day. Breakfast - pancakes with lashings of cream and maple syrup and fruit or roast potatoes and bacon. Lunch - home made burgers.

Dessert is always NY style cheesecake lol

I'm in Oz so its too hot for a turkey dinner at Xmas (we have that at a Xmas in July meal instead). So we will probably have bucks fizz and a bacon sandwich while opening presents, and then take a bottle of very cold champagne to the beach for a morning swim. When we come back we will have lots of lovely sea food, cold meats, salads, cheeses, with cocktails by the pool (my son make a fab frozen mango daiquiri!), and as the day goes on we will put the bbq on for steaks and more seafood. I will probably make a bacon and cheese cob dip too, as my son loves it, and also the traditional Xmas pav for dessert. God I'm starving now!

I love seafood this sounds heaven lucky I’ve got loads of prawns I’m having over Christmas.

I was living in Pembrokeshire, by the sea, and had adult friends staying for Christmas. None of us was interested in traditional Christmas lunch. I ordered several takeaway curries on Christmas Eve and chilled them.

Christmas Day was beautiful so we had a cooked breakfast, made sandwiches and went for a glorious long walk. Home for tea and cake, then curry. It was one of our best Christmases ever.

I'm a single parent this year who doesn't eat a roast so we're having what you want when you want. 4 DC 2 who will eat anything 2 who are fussy.

I'll cook a chicken for sandwiches, buy a precooked ham joint and make pigs in blankets, cheese & bacon puffs and Yorkshire puddings.

Party food galore & this will be from Xmas Eve and I'm hoping it was last at least 3 days

DH and the children do not like roast. So we don’t have that.

Chinese banquet delivered. Where both working right up til late won Xmas Eve with lots of travel and no time to go to shops.

It was great and really relaxed. Bottle of champagne won in work raffle and crisps between us when we got up about noon. Ordered the food and then opened presents whilst we waited for it to arrive. Ate it whilst watching films and chatting in the afternoon, along with chocolates etc from presents.

Early evening we popped round to my aunties for a couple of hours. Had some of her leftovers and some puddings/florentines/mince pies. Aunty gave us a good parcel or more turkey/kilties/mince pies etc to take away.

Then we split bottle of Baileys between us at night with another film.

Boxing Day was a mixture of leftover Chinese and leftover turkey etc.

Definitely the best Christmas I’ve ever had. Even better than ones as a kid.

@YesThisIsMe

We do Christmas Dinner at 6pm Christmas Eve - it's much less stress because you don't have to start cooking at 9am and if you realise you've forgotten anything you can dash to the shops.

Then we have cold turkey and gammon sandwiches/salad etc for Christmas Day lunch and a turkey hash Christmas Day evening. It just takes the work away from Christmas Day itself. Also we're all normally travelling on Boxing Day so it gives us a chance to make inroads into the leftovers before we set off.

I really like this idea but am intrigued by people managing to cook a roast on Christmas Eve. Do you take annual leave for Christmas Eve? I'm.reluctant to do that because my work closes between Christmas and New Year so I have to take 3 days leave to cover that. I really don't want to take a fourth day in order to cook.

@BetsyBumble

I'm amazed by all these restaurants and takeaway places being open on Christmas Day. In NI - apart from hotel-type Christmas lunches - I believe everywhere else closes!!!!! Are pizza/Chinese/Indian etc restaurants open on the 25th in each of England, Wales and Scotland then?

There's one Chinese take away open in my medium sized town in Scotland. All of the sit down restaurants are open and charging a small fortune.

My dad worked away when I was growing up so if he was away for Christmas we would have had the Christmas dinner early. On Christmas Day we would have a Chinese takeaway, or buffet type stuff on a table you could pick from all day - pizza, party food bits, crisps etc.

@BetsyBumble

I'm amazed by all these restaurants and takeaway places being open on Christmas Day. In NI - apart from hotel-type Christmas lunches - I believe everywhere else closes!!!!! Are pizza/Chinese/Indian etc restaurants open on the 25th in each of England, Wales and Scotland then?

LOL

There are parts of Birmingham (and other cities) where you wouldn't know it was a bank holiday, not just restaurants open but shops, cafes, car washes... the only things closed are the things run by the council eg libraries.

I don't actually do Xmas but occasionally I will visit friends, at one a few years ago we had kebab and chips on Xmas eve and while ordering (phone, so more than a few years ago) I asked if they would be open Xmas day, I got the answer, "yes, you know that guy Scrooge? Well our boss is the Muslim version of him"

A lot of the franchised businesses like KFC and McDonalds are open too.

OP

I don't celebrate it so eat what I want, it might be a boiled egg or it might be a roast, it just depends how I feel.