Christmas Food Prep

[BabyofMine]

I’m starting to buy my Christmas food in and thought maybe we could share deals for Christmas food, and what you’re stocking up on.

I never normally start this early but I was in Asda and they have big tubs of Celebrations, Heroes, Quality Street, Roses and Swizzels sweets for £4.00 each so we got some Celebrations and Roses. That should be enough for us for chocolate at Xmas but will be on the look out of a selection box for my 4 year old girl.

If I leave it till December as I normally do I can see us not even having any special Xmas food, spreading it out and getting deals is the only way we’ll have anything nice this year.

As long as you hide it well... whenever I buy early I eat it all! I buy the Tesco stamps do I put away a couple of pinned a week and then have £100 in December. You get a bonus £2 in Dec which might buy a sprout or carrot this year..

I normally curse supermarkets for bringing out the chocolate tins in August, but then when I was in Tesco this week they had the tins on 2 for £7 so I bought 2 quality street and 2 roses tins. Plus the large Toblerones were £3.50 so I got 2 of those. I wait for M&S extremely chocolatey biscuits to come on offer (usually £6 down to £3) but I seem to remember that deal wasn’t quite as good last year, so I’ll see what it is this year.

Oh, and I usually get those big Smarties tubes when I find them for £1, or sometimes £1.50 for 2 tubes. But again, seem to remember not finding it last year.

I usually start buying in October, unless I found some amazing offer for beef before and I just chuck it in the freezer.
Everything gets hidden and comes out a couple of weeks before Christmas.
This year also I have a butter stash in the freezer. God knows the price is going to reach before xmas
I only buy booze on offer, as it always seems to go in offer on rotation throughout the holidays

I'm going to take a trip to Costco in the next couple of weeks , might get some J2O to hide in the garage .Otherwise its the usual Costco shop including bin bags and catfood .

I've got storage in the Pantry and if I tell the DC (adults) to keep their paws off The Christmas Shelf .they might do !

I'll get some tubs of sweets for Hallowe'en Trick or Treaters , I ran out last year and had to turn the lights off . Though I think it was because it was a weekend and they hadn't done ToT for a couple of years .

We're vegetarian except DS , he has chicken (which I can pick up anytime and freeze )
I've got a pudding in the Pantry and I'll make a very small cake next month or so (only i eat it )

I keep my Nectar Points for Christmas , hopefully they'lll have the stock instore .

I found a rube of Fruit Pastilles a couple of weeks ago , out of date but still fine . DS won't eat them now they're Vegan , he says they've changed .

I haven't started yet. I can't even get Dh and Dd to decide whether we will be at home or travelling.

I will be stocking up on baking ingredients very soon. And some treats as I see them. But I've been focussed on more standard stores staples recently - cereal, pasta, rice, tins and convenience foods.

I’ve noticed M&S spiced clementine gin on offer and bought a bottle, not sure it will survive until Xmas but I’ll do my best.
We’ve moved to baking brownies, chocolate cookies and cupcakes in December and freezing some rather then buying chocolates. It keeps DD busy and much nicer imo, none of us likes Celebrations, Heroes etc.

I’ve noticed M&S spiced clementine gin on offer and bought a bottle, not sure it will survive until Xmas but I’ll do my best

If you've never tried it before , have a glass now just to check. If it's nice buy another while it's on offer .
If it's rank then you won't be disappointed after all the waiting to try it .
There was a post last year about the SugarPlum Fairy gin being nasty .

<enabler>.

Arenanewbie we are not fans of Celebrations and the like here either - so we go to Leonidas and buy a large bag (about €10 worth) of orangettes (strips of orange peel covered in dark choc) as our treat instead, and on really special Christmases, also buy a box of their mixed chocs.

(We also used to do lots of December baking, and a fair amount of freezing, but teen DD is a serious sportsperson now so doesn't eat baking etc, but some good choc is acceptable. And DH and I were eating too much so we try to limit the baking to restrict the eating...)

@BiddyPop have you got a Christmas decor plan yet?

It's a good idea but you have to be quite strong willed not to eat them before Christmas!

Not yet NiqueNique, we don't know whether we will be here or travelling, so that will dictate some aspects (real tree only a possibility if we are here, for example). And I have a new job since last year which includes a week-long trip to an overseas conference in mid-December so that will definitely limit my time to prep/decorate. But the new job may also allow me arrange my own timetable a bit better so I could do some rustic things....

I haven't even looked at the HGP yet, and I think it's already supposed to be week 2 (Living room). So decor is way down the list...

Have you got a plan yourself?

We’ve started adding something to our Tesco delivery each week. A bottle of sherry, some J2Os, tubs of chocs, ingredients for Christmas cake already.

I've got some bargains from farm foods, 2kg off heroes chocolates for £9.99 but as part of my big shop I used a voucher so they were £9! I'm going to get some bones this week and start making stock for the festive period. We do loads of entertaining so I need a good few litres and would rather get it made now before it costs me £175 to run my electric hob for 10 hours! I will be stocking up on sausage meat and bacon as I see it, we go through a lot as I make my own sausage rolls and stuffing and we like to "audition" new recipes through November and December.

I am looking forward to the winter period and Christmas despite the scary COL crisis. I'm doing my best to look at it as a money/energy saving challenge instead of a big thing to worry about.