Home for Christmas - help me plan!

[okayhescereal]

I'm super excited to be spending our first family Christmas at home this year. My oldest is almost 6 but as our family are all abroad we're always travelling at the holidays.

However...I just realised I have never once been the 'adult' at Christmas. As in the one who plans, shops, cooks etc. When we go to big family dos everyone has a portion to prepare (i.e. household A is in charge of desserts, B is in charge of cheese etc) but I've not been responsible for the whole shebang!

What are your top tips for a successful Christmas period? Where do you shop? Do you pre order? Do you pre cook?! When do you make the Christmas pudding?!

Hit me with the wisdom mumsnetters!

@Qwerty21 I make mine with carrot water as often as possible. It gives the gravy granules an earthy sweetness (indo chantenay carrots at Christmas - no peeling or dicing, just boil them whole).

I used to use boiled fresh water until a colleague introduced me to the veggie water way years and omg I can't even tell you his name anymore but I'll never forget him changing up my gravy life lol

You can pick up bargain bits of food in November that will keep eg tins of shortbread. Buy things that won't go off eg. Crackers or if necessary freeze it. If you are making Xmas cakes or puddings start early and if you like them make extra as gifts. If you want a turkey or whole salmon order them to be sure you get them. We don't use our dining room table every day so we set it ready for Xmas dinner Xmas Eve morning. I try to do a good house clean the week before Xmas. Wrap gifts at least a week early to free up time. Make homemade stuffing and freeze. DH peels all veg Xmas Eve afternoon for Xmas day. I make a dessert Xmas Eve too. I buy a frozen one too.

I do this but just add in beef juices and glass of wine and drop of milk.

Start by daydreaming what the 'special days' are going to include, and get a rough idea of what you are going to do when. Include the adults and age appropriately in working out what everyone wants to do.

A lovely tradition is that each person gets to pick an activity that the others enjoy or at least do not grumble about joining in. Your '
D.C. will need a lot of help but as they get older it will make for really interesting times.

Work back from what you want to have happen to a plan of what's required to make it all happen. Make sure the plan includes lots of down time and fresh air outdoor activities for an all round good experience.

Rather than treating each year as the 'big event' think of it as a get out to see what your family enjoys. And remember those things next year when you start planning.

Enjoy.

Thanks for this! This thread has led to some useful chats with DH. Our children are rather young and not really bothered about roasts. I think before asking on here we'd have been working hard to get all the traditions in but this thread led us to sit down and talk about what we want the 4 days DH has off work to look and feel like.

Based on that we're going out for one nice meal, doing as much food prep as possible otherwise based on the fab suggestions on here. Also going to make it a time for our fave foods rather than turkey because it's December!

Also going to prioritise getting gifts for eachother that involve us playing together on stuff we enjoy (like board games, more bits for the wooden train track to see if we can finally get it to go genuinely round the entire downstairs, Lego etc). Of course the kids have their wishes too but they're still small enough that we have some influence which is nice. We're going to chat with the kids to see if there's anything they're looking forward to so we can make sure we factor that in (I suspect driving around to see the lights will feature!) but otherwise going to try and be as low key as possible so we can focus on eachother. We're usually busy and distracted with work and housekeeping and cooking and stuff. Decided the biggest treat would be to remove as much of that as we can and try and maximise downtime and fun instead!!

Really nice not the beholden to traditions and expectations because it's just us. Thanks for making me see that we can do that 😘

I live doing Christmas properly but life is too short to make a Christmas pudding. We buy this fab traditionally shaped one

I am an eldest sibling with big age gaps. From when he was about 4 I stopped buying things for the youngest, he already had mountains of inherited toys and of course whatever father Christmas had bought.

Instead every year I would give him a choice of a couple of things we could do for day trips. Between Christmas and New year we would have a big day out somewhere, he loved feeling like he was in charge and we had a great time.

Ooh I notice that’s a Tiptree link… we just bought the Tiptree Xmas pud - it’s the best ever… can’t wait!

Don't spend too much time on food prep. If you really enjoy cooking make everything in advance. Otherwise Sainsburys/Ocado/Auntie Bessie's (other supermarkets are available) are your friends.

Remember a few shortcuts or things going slightly wrong will not spoil Christmas, but you getting stressed and upset will.