Leaving food shop until Christmas Eve

[AccidentallyWesAnderson]

Risky?

I'm nightshift into Christmas eve finishing at 7am. Working Thursday until then. The shops open at 6am, think it would be ok to just leave the majority of stuff to get after my nightshift?

We have a ham, pigs in blankets and stuffing in the freezer, but still need all veg and a small/medium turkey crown.

There is a Sainsbury's, Lidl and M&S all beside each other and hoping it will be nice and quiet at that time, get it done and then enjoy Christmas Eve in peace.

I would imagine you will get it all easily.

Have a plan B of chicken if all the turkeys have gone. Christmas Day being midweek I think on the Tuesday it may be quiet.

I think the veg will be fine it's just getting a decent turkey crown, hoping there will be some decent ones left.

I am doing all of it Christmas Eve. We’re at in laws this weekend, coming back Monday. We don’t have a big enough fridge or freezer to buy stuff now, tuesday it is! Meat is ordered from the butcher, then I have a choice of Tesco and Aldi. I’m not worried, there’ll still be loads!

Will be fine. The shops will be stripped down on the 23rd, but most items will be restocked overnight. However certain seasonal foods will be gone once they’re gone. The supermarkets seem to have plenty of stuff in, though.

The deals start from the 19th so we only got a few things today and store cupboard stuff like cranberry sauce but could do without a last minute heaving shop panic buy!

It's so hard to say to be honest. I'd say for most things you should be ok but something like a turkey crown I don't know. Hopefully a few folk who work in supermarkets and have a better idea will respond.

Do you have any time/freezer space to get a turkey crown and freeze it before then?

Maybe have a back up plan.
When we were children, we always had chicken for Christmas (chicken was more expensive than beef back then).

You will be exhausted working like that in the run up to Christmas. Be kind to your self and if you can't get everything you want, just enjoy the day x

I've been purposely running down the freezer so I'll have space so probably best getting one in the meantime just in case.

Thanks for your kind words. It's just my partner and I and we have the same time off together over Christmas for once being both shift workers in the same profession (and things have been a bit shit but that's another thread!) so I'm wanting things to be nice and stress free.

I guess it's just a posh roast dinner at the end of the day and I'm not in the sticks, I have access to shops. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Veg will be fine but would try to get turkey earlier.

You’d definitely get a chicken even if the turkey crowns are gone.

If you do freeze a turkey crown, check out the defrost times and put a reminder in your diary for when to take it out. We've had frozen whole turkeys for years, after buying a ridiculously expensive fresh turkey one year and honestly not being able to tell the difference. We defrost ours in the garage. If the temperature is likely to drop to sub zero, we bring it in overnight then take back out again. Worth thinking about.

I hope you have a lovely Christmas, sounds like you need and deserve it

Thank you 💐

Based on previous experience of being in one of our large local supermarkets every Christmas Eve for the last few years, I think it will be busy, but plenty of stock. You might even be lucky and get some marked down stock, i think I recall last year by Christmas Eve there were some great markdowns.

If you have a smaller supermarket near you, it may well be worth going there as everyone goes to the bigger superstore supermarkets to do the big Christmas shop. The last 2 years we hit the giant Asda and Aldi. Ended up in our small Tesco to try for the things we couldn’t find and it had everything on our list and we wished we’d gone there to begin with!

A small co-op is near to me so that could be a shout!