Christmas dinner

[ilkleymoorbartat]

Do you do starters? We're hosting for the first time. I always find starters a bit naff and also boring for the kids who are small. Do you all give starters, and if not is there an alternative (canapés earlier in the day?).

We don't do tend to do starters. But If you want to, I'd suggest something easy to serve and eat, duck paté with some nice bread accompanied with figs and a cheese platter?

We serve a ice cream yule log and some chocolates though.

I probably would if I was having guests. My mum always did starters and it made the dinner seem more special. Now I spend the day with my husband and 3 kids and my husband cooks and doesn't do starters. Which is fine, but I think I would insist if we had guests.

We do a starter of either prawn cocktail, pate or soup depending on who likes what. It just makes the whole meal feel more special.

No, we don’t. We have a big buffet at lunch time with quiches, cheeses, salads, fruit, smoked salmon and Parma ham.
We eat the roast turkey as an evening dinner, with red cabbage and roast potatoes - nobody has room for a starter as well! And we have home made chestnut chocolate log with cream for pudding.

Oooh pate is a great idea! We're doing a cheese board after, but I like the idea of pare. Thank you all!

No! I love Christmas dinner and cannot imagine why anyone would want to fill up on prawn cocktail rather than have seconds (or thirds)

Oh we do my mums lentil and ham hock soup is a tradition! Sometimes she does prawn cocktail too.

We don’t have Christmas dinner until around 5 or 6 (much less of a rush for the cook) and I’ve never done starters. Canapés a couple of hours before, though - usually M&S.

I'm planning on doing a small bloody mary soup with rye bread and cream cheese.

I'll do Heinz tomato soup for the kids 😁

We have starter at 12, usually smoked salmon pate and toast. Eat main about 2